NEW YORK — In 1983, producer Jerry Bruckheimer was flipping through the May issue of California magazine when he was struck by a story. “Top Guns” read the headline, with a large photograph from inside the cockpit of an F-14 fighter jet. The story opened: “At Mach 2 and 40,000 feet over California, it’s always high noon.”
“I saw that cover and I said, ‘We gotta do this. This looks great,‘” recalls Bruckheimer. “It’s ‘Star Wars’ on Earth.”
And at the box office, “Top Gun” did nearly reach “Star Wars” proportions. It was the No. 1 film of 1986, a rocket-boosted, testosterone-fueled sensation that established the then 24-year-old Tom Cruise as a major star. It made Bomber jackets, Aviator sunglasses and playing homoerotic games of beach volleyball in jeans hip just as it did military service. In the jingoist Reagan-era ’80s, “Top Gun” was about as American as it gets. The Navy set up recruitment tables in theaters. Enlistments soared.
If all of that — the go-go patriotism, a star-led blockbuster, magazines — sounds like a like time ago, it was. But almost four decades later, and after sitting on the shelf for two years due to the pandemic, “Top Gun: Maverick” is flying full throttle into a new world.
In the film, directed by Joseph Kosinski, there’s a new mission to win and dogfights to wage. But this time, the task of “Top Gun” feels even weightier. It’s here to, in a CGI, Marvel world, prove that a propulsive brand of moviemaking fueled by star power, practical effects and filmmaking prowess can, still, summon the need for speed.
“I wanted it to have that old-school experience,” says Kosinski, director of “Tron: Legacy” and “Oblivion.“ Just as Maverick is going back to Top Gun, I wanted to take the audience back to that type of filmmaking.”
Paramount Pictures, which held off on pushing “Top Gun: Maverick” to streaming, has put a military-grade push behind the sequel. After kicking off aboard the USS Midway aircraft carrier in San Diego ( where Cruise arrived by helicopter ) a worldwide promotional tour has included stops at the Cannes Film Festival ( where Cruise received an honorary Palme d’Or ) and a royal premiere in London. The film, finally, opens in theaters Friday.
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