After Top Gun: Maverick soared to unexpected heights in 2022, both at the box office and in the hearts of fans, it felt like the story of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell had finally found its landing strip.
The sequel hit all the right notes with its high-octane aerial action, a great story, and characters. So, what’s left for Top Gun 3 to do? Quite a bit, apparently, and it’s not what you might expect.
Director Joseph Kosinski is back in the cockpit, and this time he’s charting a new kind of flight path. While promoting his upcoming film F1, Kosinski teased in an interview with GQ the current thinking behind the third Top Gun installment, and the mission ahead may not involve missiles or MiGs, but something far more personal.
“We’re thinking much bigger than … It’s a really existential crisis that Maverick has in this, and it’s much bigger than himself. It’s an existential question that Maverick has to deal with, that would make Maverick feel small, I think, as a movie, compared to what we’re talking about.”
Kosinski teasing that Maverick will feel “small” next to what’s coming says a lot about the emotional or thematic scope they’re aiming for.
And while McQuarrie, who co-wrote Maverick, has said he already knows what Top Gun 3 will be, he’s playing it just as coy. The only thing we know for sure is that this will be “one last ride” for Maverick, and Kosinski believes there’s still “more story to tell” for the iconic pilot.
The lingering question is whether this story will stick with the Top Gun training program or steer into brand new territory altogether.
Given how Maverick already balanced legacy characters with fresh recruits, it’s hard to imagine the third film rehashing the classroom setting again. More likely, Maverick will either be called out of retirement for one final mission, or face a challenge that doesn’t involve a cockpit at all.
Could the enemy this time be time itself? Mortality? Legacy? Kosinski’s “existential” comments makes it sound less about fighting others and more about confronting what’s next for a man who’s spent his whole life outrunning the ground.
Kosinski also joked about Cruise reuniting with F1 star Brad Pitt in a crossover of sorts, saying:
“Right now, it’d be Cole Trickle, who was [Cruise’s] Days of Thunder character, we find out that he and Sonny Hayes [Pitt’s character in F1] have a past. They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths … I heard about this epic go-kart battle on Interview with a Vampire that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?”
Sadly, Pitt reportedly only wants to work with Cruise again “on the ground”, which makes his involvement in Top Gun 3 unlikely unless Maverick trades the flight suit for a racing helmet.
Top Gun 3 doesn’t have a release date yet, and with Kosinski’s F1 scheduled to hit theaters on June 27, 2025, we may be waiting a bit longer to see how Maverick’s next chapter plays out.
But if the creative team really does go for something bigger, bolder, and more introspective, this could be more than just another legacy sequel, it might actually be the rare finale that explores what happens when the thrill is gone.
