Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie [Valkyrie] is working on an idea for Top Gun 2, and Paramount is eager to get the project up and running, with offers out to the original producer/director team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott to return.
McQuarrie has even devised a way to include Tom Cruise in a minor reprisal of his role as Maverick: Cruise is game as long the role isn’t too “obvious.” Vulture report that the impetus behind the project is David Ellison, who was three years old when Top Gun hit theaters. Yet Ellison wore out VHS copy, which inspired him to become an aerobatic pilot and instrument-rated commercial pilot, followed by a stint at USC’s film school. It just so happens that David’s father is Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle Corp. and sixth richest man in the world. When you’re a trust fund kid who loves movies about planes, you start a production company, name it Skydance, and debut with the WWI drama Flyboys. [Also, you star in that movie as Eddie Beagle, who apparently shouts “Beware the hook!” after shooting down a German plane with his “hook hand.”) Ellison didn’t let the rousing non-success of Flyboysdiscourage him; he has been a major player in the financing of Paramount’s upcoming slate. The first of these is the Mission: Impossible reboot, currently filming. So get ready to polish your avaitors.
