When last we reported on the status of Top Gun 2, Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz (Thor) were supposedly set to draft the sequel. Apparently that never happened and now Peter Craig (The Town) will be starting from scratch. Not to worry, Mr. Craig, because Tom Cruise has thoughts on what the sequel could be about and just how big a role Maverick would play in it. Concrete plot details are non-existent at the moment, but it does seem likely that Cruise will return along with original director, Tony Scott. Top Gun 2 is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films and David Ellison's Skydance Productions for Paramount. Hit the jump to see what Cruise and Scott's take would be on the sequel's plot. Variety reported on Craig's recent top_gun_poster_01attachment to the project. He seems like a decent prospect to resurrect the now twenty-five year old property, having drafted the critically and financially successful, The Town, starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner. Craig has recently adapted Fathers and Guns, a French-Canadian father-son cop film, for Columbia Pictures. Bruckheimer is also shopping Craig's adaptation of Doug Stanton's novel, Horse Soldiers. Finally, Craig is also working on Bad Boys 3 for Sony.As for Top Gun 2, Cruise expressed his desire to see the movie made and for Scott to be involved as well:

“I said to Tony [Scott], I want to make another movie with him. He and I haven’t made a film since Days of Thunder. Tony and I and Jerry [Bruckheimer], we never thought that we would do it again. Then they started to come to us with these ideas of where it is now. I thought, ‘Wow, that would be … what we could do now. I hope we can figure this out to go do it again. If we can find a story that we all want to do, we all want to make a film that is in the same kind of tone as the other one and shoot it in the same way as we shot Top Gun… We’re working on it.”

As previously mentioned, there are no new plot details at this time. However, Scott did suggest a few contemporary ideas for a revamped Top Gun storyline, one that I think could be an interesting take on the evolution of warfare and the soldiers themselves. Check out what he had to say below:

“These computer geeks — these kids play war games in a trailer in Fallon, Nevada and if we ever went to war or were in the Middle East or the Far East or wherever it is, these guys can actually fly drones.  They are unmanned aircraft.  They operate them and then they party all night.”

If done right, the physical and emotional separation between the brash young pilot and the distant unseen target could be a very significant piece of work for a young actor to chew on, especially if a grizzled veteran happens to be around to explain to junior the way it used to be. I think there's potential here, but what do you think?

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