Top Gun: Maverick release date moved up by Paramount

According to Deadline, Paramount Pictures has changed the release date for director Joseph Kosinski’s highly-anticipated aviation sequel Top Gun: Maverick. Originally set to debut on June 26, the Tom Cruise-led film will now hit the theaters on Wednesday, June 24. The film was previously scheduled to go up against Warner Bros. Pictures’ In the Heights film, but now Top Gun: Maverick will no longer have any competition on its new release date.

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Top Gun: Maverick is set in a world of drone technology and fifth-generation fighters along with exploring the end of the era of dogfighting. Maverick (once again played by Tom Cruise) is now a flight instructor, who takes Bradley Bradshaw (played by Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s late partner Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, under his wing. The film also stars Jon Hamm, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell and Ed Harris.

Joseph Kosinski, who previously directed Cruise in Oblivion, will helm the sequel, with Peter Craig, Justin Marks and Eric Warren Singer penning the script.

A follow-up to Tony Scott’s 1986 hit has been in the works for quite some time, with Tom Cruise interested in reprising his role as United States Naval Aviator Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer previously outlined that the film will deal with the rise of unmanned drones and pilots becoming a thing of the past.

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The original Top Gun was directed by Tony Scott and also starred Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards and Tom Skerritt. The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Take My Breath Away” performed by Berlin. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”