Posted in: Movies, Paramount Pictures | Tagged: movies, Paramount Pictures, top gun: maverick

Tom Cruise Put the Actors Through "Boot Camp" for Top Gun: Maverick

When Paramount Pictures announced that they were not only finally pulling the trigger on a sequel to Top Gun, but they convinced Tom Cruise to come back, no one was really that surprised when it was announced that Cruise basically wanted to fly the planes again. Because, of course, he did. So no one was really surprised by that, and no one is really that surprised to learn that Cruise decided that being realistic and needing to be in those planes for accuracy didn't just extend to him but to the entire cast. Total Film got the chance to speak to Cruise and several other cast members about the filming process for this movie and getting people into those planes.

Cruise says it was essential to bring together a team with no egos as they needed the "commitment to shoot the actors practically, inside the Boeing F/A-18 Superhornet jets. … I developed a whole program for the actors, and how we could get them in the [F/A-18s]," he continues. "It was every step of the way. I had to teach them how to fly. I had to teach them how to handle gs. I had to get them confident in the aeroplane."

And because this is Cruise, the cast of Top Gun: Maverick didn't get a few little lessons in planes. In fact, Miles Teller described the entire experience as "Tom Cruise boot camp" because they all went through the same training experiences that Cruise did, which is, of course, a lot even for young actors.

"We were all mini Toms making this movie," says co-star Miles Teller, who plays Goose's son, Rooster. "He put us through… I'll just call it a 'Tom Cruise boot camp'. We were getting in killer shape. And also for the stunts and stuff that Tom does in movies, it's usually a very specific type of training. You're not just going into the gym and lifting some weights. We did flight training for three months before we started filming… We got put through the wringer."

When Cruise agreed to do the first Top Gun, it was because he wanted to be in those planes and fly them. It sounds like they knew better this time around for Top Gun: Maverick because when they tried to use footage of actors from the first movie in the planes, it didn't exactly go well.

"On the first movie, we put all the actors in an F-14, and we couldn't use a frame of it, except for some stuff on Tom – that was it," recalls producer Jerry Bruckheimer. "Their eyes were rolling back into their heads. They were throwing up. So Tom remembered that, and since he's an avid pilot, he said, 'We've got to train them to be able to handle the g-forces.'"

So "Tom Cruise Boot Camp" it was for anyone signing onto Top Gun: Maverick. The movie got delayed at the end of the summer of 2021 to May of 2022, but we did get to see the opening scene at CinemaCon last year. It was a pretty wild scene in terms of someone being in a plane, but it looks pretty tame based on the footage we've seen.

Summary: After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: "Rooster," the son of Maverick's late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka "Goose." Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.

Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski, stars Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis with Ed Harris. It will be released on May 27, 2022.

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