Paramount Pictures has released new, never-before-seen footage from their summer blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, and any fan of the original Top Gun will be pleased to see it. The new video shows Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller) seated at a piano at the Hard Deck, the military bar owned by Pete "Maverick" Mitchell's (Tom Cruise) old flame, Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), banging out a tune almost as iconic as Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone": "Great Balls of Fire", originally recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis.
The original scene in Maverick cut down much of Teller's (and the crowd's) performance, focusing more on Maverick's reaction to the song and his memories of singing it with Goose (Anthony Edwards), Rooster's father who he lost in the original film. The new video shows off the whole of the song, with Rooster playing the piano as he's surrounded by his fellow Navy pilots, including Payback (Jay Ellis), Phoenix (Monica Barbaro), Fanboy (Danny Ramirez), and Bob (Lewis Pullman). Rooster pulls out all the stops for a lively performance, rocking the walls of the Hard Deck in a Hawaiian shirt and aviators that make him look just like his father.
Teller's rendition of "Great Balls Of Fire" is one of the songs featured on Maverick's soundtrack album, which also boasts new tracks written for the film, including "Hold My Hand" by Lady Gaga and "I Ain't Worried" by OneRepublic, both of which appear in the film. Teller insisted on learning to play the piano for the sequence himself, as opposed to using a hand double, as he revealed to CinemaBlend, though the song turned out to be a little tougher than expected:
"I said, ‘I played piano when I was younger. I still dabble a little bit. I don’t need a double. I will play and sing this live.’ But then you realize it’s a pretty hard song, and he sings pretty high."
Produced by Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick maintains its box office dominance, and is currently the highest-grossing film of the year in the United States, becoming the second film to surpass the $400 million domestic milestone since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The movie also set a new record for Cruise's career, and it is anticipated to surpass his global record holder, Mission Impossible: Fallout, which currently stands at $791 million.
Top Gun: Maverick, also starring Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Bashir Salahuddin, is playing in theaters now. Watch Teller's rendition of "Great Balls Of Fire" down below: