Top Gun: Maverick - Tom Cruise Wasn't Gonna Do It, Until...

Tom Cruise Had to Be Convinced to Make ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Top Gun: Maverick broke Memorial Day box office records… And it was Tom Cruise’s best domestic opening, ever. Who would have thought that Cruise didn’t want to shoot the film, at first?

But, Joseph Kosinski, the director of the film, says he had just 30 minutes to convince Cruise to do the sequel—and that Cruise “really didn’t want to.”

“So I read the script, I had some ideas, and Jerry [Bruckheimer] liked those ideas. He said, ‘You know what, you gotta go pitch this to Tom directly.’ We flew to Paris, where Tom was shooting ‘Mission: Impossible,’ we got about a half-hour of his time between setups,” Kosinski told Polygon, recently.

He continued, “It’s one of those moments as a director, you have one on every film, where you’re on the spot to make a case for why this movie should be made. I had 30 minutes to do it.”

His pitch worked, as Cruise then picked up his phone, and called the head of Paramount Pictures right in front of Kosinkski. “We’re making another ‘Top Gun,’” Cruise said.

There’s more, here: Polygon

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