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A three-decade late sequel to the high-flying Top Gun is picking up speed again, with producer Jerry Bruckheimer having officially met with leading man Tom Cruise to discuss reprising his role.

Bruckheimer announced the meeting on social media, tweeting out a picture of him and Cruise together, captioned "Just got back from a weekend in New Orleans to see my old friend Tom Cruise and discuss a little Top Gun 2."


A snap and a cheery comment may not appear to be a lot to go on, but it actually represents the biggest step forward in the development of the follow-up in a long while. Hollywood site Deadline reports that the meeting was actually to discuss the movie's plot, and that Top Gun 2 is "closer now to becoming real than it's been in 30 years."

In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences. Just got back from a weekend in New Orleans to see my old friend @TomCruise and discuss a little Top Gun 2. pic.twitter.com/vA2xK7S7JS — JERRY BRUCKHEIMER (@BRUCKHEIMERJB) January 26, 2016

David Ellison, CEO of Skydance Productions -- the movie studio developing the film in conjunction with Bruckheimer -- previously confirmed the Top Gun sequel was moving ahead last June, but development has been quiet since.


At the time, he said "There is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no Top Gun without Maverick. It is going to be Maverick playing Maverick. It is, I don’t think, what people are going to expect, and we are very, very hopeful that we get to make the movie very soon."

Cruise appeared as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a US Naval Aviator with an attitude, in the 1986 original, which Bruckheimer also produced. After original director Tony Scott committed suicide in 2012, development stalled on making a second, but parent studio Paramount now seems confident to move ahead again. A director for the new film has not yet been named.

The last known script for Top Gun 2 was penned by Justin Marks, who wrote the Street Fighter tie-in flick The Legend of Chun-Li. How much of Marks' proposal will make it to the final version likely depends on Cruise's approval as much as Bruckheimer's and the eventual director's -- after the first Top Gun grossed $357m ($772m, adjusted for inflation, or £540m), the actor was catapulted to the top of Hollywood's in-demand list, and exerts considerable influence over his projects.