What We Know About Top Gun: Maverick

It would be an understatement to say the cast of this film is stacked. It’s no secret that Tom Cruise will be back to play the iconic Top Gun character, Maverick. However, there is a slew of new faces we’ll be seeing in the sequel—with award-winning actors behind them! To start, here’s a peek at who will be gracing the Maverick screen:

• Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell
• Val Kilmer as Iceman
• Jennifer Connelly as Penny Benjamin
• Miles Teller as Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw
• Jon Hamm as Cyclone
• Ed Harris as Rear Admiral
• Monica Barbaro as Phoenix
• Glen Powell as Hangman

To the delight of Top Gun fans, Val Kilmer will be reprising his role as Iceman, Maverick’s competition-turned-friend. After going through treatment for throat cancer, which permanently altered Kilmer’s ability to speak, it was unsure if the actor would return. Although it has been confirmed that
Val Kilmer will be in the film¹, it’s expected to be more of a cameo than a major role.New Paragraph

From what we can piece together from the trailers and discussions, the film takes place about 30 years after the events of the original movie. Maverick works as a test pilot and has no interest in a promotion that could force him to leave the cockpit for good. However, he finds himself back at Top Gun—but in a very different role.

Maverick makes a career change to take up training elite recruits to become the best fighter pilots in the world. Plot twist: one of the new students, played by Miles Teller, is Goose’s son! The film revolves around Maverick navigating his new role while facing challenges, relationships, and more amazing aerial stunts.

Due to the global pandemic and other production issues, the movie’s release date was
pushed back² from July 2019 to December 2020 to July 2021, and then from mid-November 2021 to finally Memorial Day weekend of 2022.

The movie officially hits theaters on
May 27, 2022. However, there will be a
special screening³ at CinemaCon on April 28, 2022, and a world premiere at France’s 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2022.

While we’re unsure when the film will be available on streaming platforms, many anticipate it will debut on Paramount Plus some time after the theatrical release date. Paramount Pictures is handling the distribution of Top Gun: Maverick.

According to
Esquire⁴, the cast of Top Gun: Maverick had to pass a rigorous boot camp designed by none other than Tom Cruise himself! Tom Cruise is notorious for performing his own stunts in movies, and he expected the same level of dedication from the rest of the cast.

Trying to make the film look and feel as authentic as possible, the new cast members trained alongside Cruise in a Boeing F/A-18 Superhornet fighter jet. They were put through three months of flight school and intense G-forces in order to make the cut. In other words, the actors took it to the limit to shoot the most realistic film possible. If the rest of the movie is anything like the trailers, we have a lot to look forward to!

Now it’s your turn to get in the cockpit with our adrenaline-pumping
Top Gun Experience at Sky Combat Ace! We recreate many of the aerobatic moves and stunts from the original film, including:

• Aerial dogfighting
• Air to air combat maneuvers
• Low-level bombing runs
• Rolls, loops, and tailslides

If you’re ready to play fighter pilot for the day, we’ve got you covered. Our skilled pilots will take you for a ride you will never forget in one of our professional stunt planes. To learn more, contact the Sky Combat Ace team or
book your flight today!