While Tom Cruise didn’t physically attend this year’s CinemaCon – probably because he was busy landing helicopters in gardens, practising motorcycle jumps, or polishing his steel balls elsewhere – he did make a virtual appearance. Normally, it’d be another who-gives-a-fuck formality. But on this occasion, his digital greeting of audience members was to showcase quite the tasty treat: the opening 13 minutes of Top Gun: Maverick.
Unfortunately, the same 13 minutes isn’t readily available to stream for the outside world just yet. The good folks over at Deadline, however, provided the following description of what was screened (and what had fans of the iconic 80s flick going nuts):
In the sequence, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (portrayed by Tom Cruise) is informed that the Top Gun program is getting shut down. He decides to defy the Admiral (portrayed by Ed Harris) making the decision to fly to Mach 10. Maverick fires up the jet at dusk in the middle of the desert. He’s warned, “You know what happens if you go through with this.” But Maverick doesn’t care, “I know what happens to everyone else if I don’t." “Alright, sweetheart, one last ride,” the buckaroo pilot adds. “He’s the fastest man alive,” says the control booth technician as Maverick pushes toward Mach 9. The whole room is in awe as Lorne Balfe’s heavenly symphonic music plays.
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Then as Maverick hits 9.8, it looks like the engine is gonna blow, but he makes Mach 10 and the control room goes wild. Maverick then pushes past 10.1 before his engines blow and the screen in the control room goes dark. It looks like the plane is exploding in mid-air.
Maverick lives. We see him walking into the middle of a country diner, the patrons shocked at a pilot entering.
“Where am I?” he asks.
“Earth,” responds a little boy at the diner counter.
In addition to the first 13 minutes of Top Gun: Maverick, reports indicate Paramount is also dropping a new trailer that depicts Jon Hamm as Vice Admiral Cyclone, offering Tom Cruise’s Maverick a second chance as per the request of Val Kilmer’s Iceman. Although another ghost from Maverick’s past isn’t so forgiving. The trailer also features Miles Teller as pilot trainee Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw – son of the deceased Radar Intercept Officer, Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw – who can be heard saying: “My dad believed in you… I’m not going to make the same mistake.”
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After over thirty years of service as the US Navy’s top aviator, Maverick is right where he belongs, continuing to “push the envelope” as a daring test pilot and dodging any advancements in rank that would keep him grounded.
When Maverick finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission “the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen”, he finds himself facing an uncertain future, forced to confront his past and his deepest fears. This culminates in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.
Joining Tom Cruise, Ed Harris, Jon Hamm, Miles Teller, and Val Kilmer will be Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell, Manny Jacinto, as well as Lewis Pullman. In the director’s chair, you’ll find Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Oblivion); working with a screenplay penned by Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), Peter Craig (The Hunger Games), Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle), as well as longtime Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie (the two most recent Mission Impossible films, Edge of Tomorrow).
Top Gun: Maverick is currently scheduled to hit Aussie cinemas on November 18th of 2021.
