Top Gun 2 is gearing up to begin filming this summer. This is really happening and it's time to accept that fact. Talk of a possible Top Gun sequel has been brewing for a very long time, but things never really got going. However, starting last year, talks started getting serious and Tom Cruise decided to make it his next official project, following Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which is set to hit theaters on July 27. It looks like he'll be hopping straight from the press tour for that movie to Top Gun 2, as a new report reveals that the studio hopes to begin filming on the sequel in July.

Paramount and Skydance Productions are said to be getting production going on Top Gun 2, which is officially titled Maverick, by July, which should give them just enough time to get the movie finished. They've already set a release date for July 12, 2019, meaning that they will have about a year from start to finish in order to meet that release date. That's not uncommon, but with a movie this big, that could be somewhat tight. Either way, it looks like this long-awaited sequel is finally getting made and has been pegged as a major summer blockbuster for next year. More than 30 years later, Maverick is going to be back in action.

Joseph Kosinski has been tapped to directed this Top Gun sequel. He previously worked with Tom Cruise on Oblivion. That movie didn't quite do what the studio had hoped at the box office, and it wasn't exactly a critical hit either, but Cruise apparently feels he's got a good movie in him. There's no way Cruise, who will be 56-years-old by the time this movie hits theaters, would trust a sequel like this to someone he didn't fully believe in. Kosinski is also known for directing 2010's Tron: Legacy, which also didn't do quite what Disney was hoping it would do at the time. Though, there were talks of making his version of Tron 3 for quite some time, which never materialized.

Actual plot details are mostly being kept under wraps, but we know that Top Gun 2 is going to be, as one would hope, about aviators piloting big, fast, dangerous jets in a modern world. Val Kilmer has expressed his desire to return as Ice Man in the sequel, but it's unclear at the present time if he's actually going to make an appearance. It's also up in the air as to whether or not we're going to get another volleyball scene, but don't bet on it.

With production kicking off soon, we should be hearing word on casting in the relatively near future. So we'll know who is going to join up with Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick sooner rather than later. The original Top Gun was released in 1986 and grossed $356 million at the box office. When inflation is accounted for, that makes it a massive hit. Can Paramount and Skydance really expect audiences to turn up for a sequel all these years later? We'll find out next year. This news comes to us courtesy of Omega Underground.