Jerry Bruckheimer sent Top Gun fans into a frenzy earlier this week when he suggested that he had been talking about a sequel with star Tom Cruise.

Jerry Bruckheimer & Tom Cruise

“Just got back from a weekend in New Orleans to see my old friend @TomCruise and discuss a little Top Gun 2,” Bruckheimer captioned a picture with the Mission Impossible star on Twitter. Cruise then shared the news about the potential sequel with his followers on Twitter.

Rumors about a Top Gun sequel have been swirling since 2014, when Bruckheimer suggested that there was already a concept for the film, but that he was waiting on Cruise to become available.

“The concept is, basically, are the pilots obsolete because of drones. Cruise is going to show them that they’re not obsolete. They’re here to stay. It’s just getting to the starting place,” Bruckheimer told The Huffington Post. “Fortunately for Tom, he’s very busy, so you have to find a slot he can fit into and get a budget that Paramount feels they can make the picture.”

“We’ve been trying to get that movie made for thirty years, and I think we’re getting closer and closer,” Bruckheimer added at the time. “Don [Simpson] and I tried to develop something, we didn’t succeed. Cruise took over, and he tried to develop something, and he didn’t succeed. Now we’re back at it.”

Justin Marks (The Jungle Book) has been working on the script for the sequel, which will feature Cruise reprising his role of Maverick.

“He has a phenomenal take to really update that world for what fighter pilots in the Navy has turned into today,” David Ellison, who is producing the film alongside Dana Goldberg, said during the Terminator Genisys press tour over the summer. “There is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no Top Gun without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick.”

In November, Val Kilmer revealed on Facebook that he’d been offered the chance to reprise the part of Iceman in the Top Gun sequel. However, like with past statements people associated with the project had made, it wrongly implied that Top Gun 2 was a certainty.

“This has been talked about for a long long time and being offered a role is very different from doing a role,” Kilmer wrote in an edited version of his Facebook post. “I jumped the gun with my post. I jumped the topgun… An innocent mistake. It was just such a wonderful phone call with my agent…”

Cruise has previously suggested that were everything to fall into place – including actually being able to fly the jets – he’d be on board.

“It’s tricky to figure out,” Cruise told Extra. “If I can figure it out, if all of us can figure it out, it’d be fun to do. I’d like to fly those jets again, but we’ve got to do all the jets practical — no CGI on the jets.”

“If we can figure all that out, and the Department of Defense will allow us to do it, that would be fun,” Cruise added.

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