Top Gun 3 confirmed
Paramount Pictures have confirmed that Top Gun 3 is "officially in development with a script underway".
Top Gun 3 has been confirmed.
Josh Greenstein, co-chair of Paramount Pictures, revealed that Tom Cruise will once again be taking to the skies as fighter pilot Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the upcoming project, which is "officially in development with a script underway", during CinemaCon at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, on Thursday (16.04.26).
Cruise, 63, was not at the event's Paramount presentation to announce Top Gun 3 - which comes three years after Top Gun: Maverick - but he appeared in a video standing atop the studio's iconic water tower on the lot in Los Angeles.
He shouted: "The future looks pretty great from here."
Greenstein and fellow co-chair Dana Goldberg also confirmed that Top Gun 3 will be "reuniting Tom Cruise and Jerry Bruckheimer" - who produced the 1986 original and 2022's Top Gun: Maverick.
A director and release date have yet to be announced.
In January 2024, Glen Powell, 37, teased that he (Hangman), Cruise (Maverick) and Miles Teller, 39, (Rooster) will be reuniting for a sequel to Top Gun: Maverick - which grossed $1.5 billion at the global box office from a $170 million budget.
Speaking to Variety, he said of the then-rumour: "People looked at me like I knew what was going on.
"There is going to be some fun stuff being announced soon…but it was confidential to me. I talk to [Joseph] Kosinski, Cruise and Jerry [Bruckheimer] all the time.
"There is stuff happening, and it sounds very exciting. I don’t know when I’ll be going back…I’m sure there is a jet waiting for me sometime in the future."
It was also said that Ehren Kruger, 53, who co-wrote Top Gun: Maverick with 57-year-olds Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie - was writing the script for Top Gun 3.
And in May 2025, McQuarrie said a plot for Top Gun 3 was "already in the bag" and that it was "not hard to crack".
Speaking to YouTuber Josh Horowitz on an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Josh asked Christopher: "Is Top Gun 3 harder to crack in some ways than Top Gun: Maverick?"
To which he replied: "No, it’s already in the bag.”
Following up on the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning director's answer, he then said: "You’ve cracked it?"
Confirming that an idea for Top Gun 3 was nailed, Christopher added: "Yeah, I already know what it is."
The filmmaker then went on to explain how Kruger suggested an idea for the upcoming third instalment to the Top Gun series, and it ticked the "framework" boxes.
Christopher said: "It wasn’t hard. I thought it would be, and that’s a good place to go from is you walk into the room going, ‘Come on, what are we going to do?’ and Ehren Kruger pitched something, and I went, ‘Mhm actually,’ and we had one conversation about it and the framework is there.
“So, no, it’s not hard to crack. The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack.”
