There’s a plum role in the anticipated sequel Top Gun 2 that needs casting, and three in-demand actors are reportedly at the top of the list. Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer are reprising their roles as Maverick and Iceman, respectively, in the follow-up, but the dearly departed Goose (played by Anthony Edwards) will have a presence in the form of his adult son. Per THR, Glen Powell (Set It Up), Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Apocalypse), and Miles Teller (Thank You For Your Service) are the three frontrunners to land the role at this point in time.

THR says testing has been ongoing with Cruise and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison leading the charge, and while Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner) and Austin Butler (The Shannara Chronicles) were in the mix at an earlier stage, the list has been narrowed down to Powell, Hoult, and Teller.

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Image via Netflix

One might imagine Teller has a bit of a leg-up here as he recently starred in director Joseph Kosinski’s Only the Brave, and Kosinski is at the helm of Top Gun: Maverick, reuniting with Cruise after they made the sci-fi drama Oblivion together. But my pick here is far and away Powell, who broke out in a big way in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! and Hidden Figures, and who recently made a splash with the critically acclaimed Netflix romcom Set It Up. Powell has a charisma that’s undeniable, but he’s also got a kindness about him that would seem to evoke Edwards’ vibe that made Goose so memorable.

Of course Hoult wouldn’t be a bad choice either, and he most recently wrapped the lead role in the J.R.R. Tolkein biopic Tolkein and reprises his role as Beast in X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Meg Ryan played Goose’s partner in Top Gun, and it’ll be interesting to see if she reprises her role for this sequel. Pre-shoots on the film recently went underway as Cruise shared the first image of himself back in costume, but it’s clear that principal photography has yet to begin with this key role needing to be cast. We’ll surely find out who lands it soon enough. Top Gun 2 opens in theaters on July 12, 2019.

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Image via TIFF
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Image via Universal Pictures
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Image via Annapurna Pictures