Top Gun: Mavericks director on how he lured Tom Cruise back for a sequel

almost 40 years ago top gun let moviegoers feel a little of the thrill that comes with being a fighter pilot – thanks in part to Kenny Loggin’s anthem “Danger Zone” but also in large part to the talents of the cast and crew led by the late Tony Scott. Arriving in cinemas decades later, Top Gun: Maverick has to be done right not only by the fans but also by the creators of the first film. How do you make viewers used to the casual magic of CGI feel like they’re in the cockpit with these pilots in 2022? top gun made in 1986? For director Joe Kosinski, the answer was: you really do it

Like his previous films Tron: Legacy and oblivion Prove that Kosinski is both adept at making improbable sequels to decades-old films and delivering blockbuster action starring Tom Cruise. Top Gun: Maverick shows how the director combines those talents for what feels like a throwback summer blockbuster real in a way that big-budget movies haven’t done in a long time.

In a conversation with Polygon, Kosinski popped in the way Top Gun: Maverick makes viewers feel like they’re on those jets, how he convinced Tom Cruise to play the lead, and how the right villain for a Top Gun movie just couldn’t be anyone.

Polygon: Let’s start with your connection to top gun. How was your experience with the first film?

Josef Kosinski: I first saw the film as a 12-year-old kid and for me it was the prototype for the ultimate summer film. It made Tom Cruise a superstar and [producer Jerry] Bruckheimer and [producer Don] Simpson had done Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance at this point. When you saw that double lightning strike At the beginning of a movie it meant you were going to have a good time.

But other than that, it wasn’t exactly a movie I’d seen often until Jerry sent me an early draft of a script in 2017 to look at. I had done [Oblivion] with Tom at that point and obviously had an incredible experience doing it.

Was everyone on board for loner from the beginning?

So I read the script, I had some ideas and Jerry liked those ideas. He said, “You know what, you have to propose that to Tom directly.” So we flew to Paris, where Tom was filming Impossible Mission, we have about half an hour of his time between setups. And I basically had 30 minutes to introduce this film, which I didn’t realize as we skimmed. But once I got there, I realized that Tom really didn’t want to do another one top gun.

It’s one of those moments as a director, you have one with every film where you’re there to argue why that film should be made. I had 30 minutes to do this. And at the end of the pitch he picked up the phone, called the head of Paramount Pictures and said, “We’re going to do another one top gun.” It’s pretty impressive to see the power of a real movie star in this moment.

How did you present it to Tom Cruise? Did he tell you what convinced him?

Well, I’ve worked with Tom and I knew I had to start with character and emotion. I just came up with this idea of ​​Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller) growing up to be a naval aviator and how he and Maverick have this broken relationship that was never repaired. Maverick is called back to train this group of students for a mission he knows is very, very dangerous.

The conflict [is about] The difference between an airman who goes in and risks his own life and someone in a higher position who has to send others in to risk their lives. I’ve spoken to a few naval admirals who have spoken about this difference. It’s a different kind of pressure, it’s almost harder to send others in than to go yourself. And to me, it felt like this took the emotion of the past film and the relationships we all love, but took it in a new direction. So that’s where I started.

I think that was honestly the element that really grabbed Tom because it gave him an emotional reason to come back to this character. The second thing was what did Maverick do? Do you know where can we find him? And that’s kind of my own passion, you know, to come through and pitch the Darkstar sequence [in the beginning]just being someone who has always loved airplanes and aerospace and studied and loved aerospace and mechanical engineering The right stuff. The idea of ​​finding him as a test pilot on the edge of possibility seemed like the perfect way to find him and Tom loved that.

He must have loved the way you were going to shoot that too.

I showed him some videos of Navy pilots installing GoPros in their cockpits and I said, “You know, this is available for free on the internet. If we can’t beat that, there’s no point in doing this.” And he agreed. And finally, I just had the title, you know, which I think summed it all up. “We won’t name it Top gun 2we will name it Top Gun: Maverick.” It’s a character-driven story, a drama with this huge action film around it. And that was something for me top gun movie is.

Let’s talk a little bit about this Darkstar sequence. Jerry Bruckheimer says you were heavily involved in the conception.

Yes, I mean it was my dream. Skunk Works is that division of Lockheed that makes these top-secret planes. They fly at night, no one knows they exist. We experience them 20, 30 years after they flew.

I had just made a film funded by Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx. And he told me he had a contact at Lockheed. He had just toured there – it helps to have friends in high places. He arranged for Jerry, me and Skunk Works to meet and we drove out to central Palmdale and met with their senior staff. And I just said, “Listen, I want to put an airplane in this movie that does that This, Thisand This. I know you have some experience in this area. We’re going to give people a glimpse of something they’ve never seen before.”

And they said yes. I think the real reason they helped us was so we could make it as real as possible, but they didn’t to really you know We changed a few details so we don’t reveal any secrets, but it has a lot of features and details for people who are really in this world. I think they’ll get a kick out of it.

How do you get people excited about these pilots and the planes? Like other people I’ve spoken to about this, I had an experience while watching this: “Apparently I really like planes. Have I always been like this?

Our approach is a classic film approach. The only thing they could do in the 80’s was really capture this stuff, at least the exterior shots. You just can’t fake what it’s like to be in one of these jets, the forces, the way the light changes, the vibration, the sense of speed, all that. There’s just no substitute for that.

What I’ve noticed is that people see this movie and they keep saying the same thing, “It just feels so real.” And it’s funny, because maybe with fantasy movies or superhero movies we’ve lost sight of that a little bit where they have images create that cannot really be captured. So they rely on CGI. But really capturing it is just something else. And for this film, we found a way to do that. And it just feels different.

In the original top gun, the villains aren’t actually named. in the loner, the pilots train for a mission against a vague “shadow state”. What went into this decision?

It was specifically designed as a faceless, nameless enemy, just like the first film. You know, this is a movie about friendship and sacrifice and teamwork and competition, just like the first movie. It’s not a film about geopolitics. We didn’t want it. So that’s how we designed it – the jets are fictional, they’re faceless enemies. The mission itself is about protecting the world.

And that was all intentional, just because we wanted the focus to be on the story of Maverick and his relationship with those characters. We shot the movie in 2018. We started filming in 2018. And you know, the world is always changing. It’s really hard to do something that feels relevant because the world is always changing.