Top Gun 2, Jack Reacher 2… Still Happening

Two movies that fit our niche starring Tom Cruise are on the horizon.  Actually, at least four if you consider Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation and ’80s thriller Mena.  But the latest is on Top Gun 2 and Jack Reacher 2.

Collider recently had the chance to speak to Skydance CEO David Ellison, who gave an update on Top Gun 2. First, on the script currently being written by The Jungle Book scribe Justin Marks, Ellison indicated that they’re approaching the sequel with a new and more modern take on the franchise:

Justin Marks is writing the screenplay right now. He has a phenomenal take to really update that world for what fighter pilots in the Navy has turned into today. There is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no ‘Top Gun’ without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick. It is I don’t think what people are going to expect, and we are very, very hopeful that we get to make the movie very soon. But like all things, it all comes down to the script, and Justin is writing as we speak.

Skydance, huh?  Why am I suddenly not getting a good feeling about this?  I really can’t put my finger on why that might be.  Anyway, as well as confirming Tom Cruise will be back in the lead role of Maverick, Ellison also said that Top Gun 2 is going to be the kind of movie that needs to be experienced in the biggest format possible:

Absolutely, I think this is a movie that should be in 3-D and in IMAX, and again something that you can shoot practically. As everyone knows with Tom, he is 100% going to want to be in those airplanes shooting it practically. When you look at the world of dogfighting, what’s interesting about it is that it’s not a world that exists to the same degree when the original movie came out. This world has not been explored. It is very much a world we live in today where it’s drone technology and fifth generation fighters are really what the United States Navy is calling the last man-made fighter that we’re actually going to produce so it’s really exploring the end of an era of dogfighting and fighter pilots and what that culture is today are all fun things that we’re gonna get to dive into in this movie.

As far as Jack Reacher 2 is concerned, which Ed Zwick (The Last Samurai) is attached to direct, Goldberg says filming could begin as early as this Fall.

Right now Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz are doing a rewrite of the original draft that was written by Richard Wenk. Again, going back to where we started this interview, it all comes down to the script. Our hope, Tom’s hope, Paramount’s hope is that we are shooting mid-October the sequel to Jack Reacher, but we haven’t read Ed and Marshall’s draft yet. All of the dominoes fall once that happens because if we like that draft and Tom likes that draft, we’re gonna be shooting in October.