While the marketing campaign has yet to really pick up, Paramount Pictures has officially announced that Tom Cruise's long-awaited
Top Gun: Maverick will now open in theaters two days early on Wednesday, June 24, rather than the previously scheduled June 26.
Considering the lack of competition around the time of release, the move is definitely a smart one as it now allows the Joseph Kosinski-directed film to take full advantage of a prime summer weekend, and if the film turns out to be good, then the new date will allow a little more time for positive word-of-mouth to spread as the Fourth of July holiday swiftly approaches the following week.
Barring any last minute changes due to unforeseen circumstances, here's what the June/July release calendar currently looks like:
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Wonder Woman 1984 (June 5)
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Candyman (June 12)
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Greyhound (June 12)
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Soul (June 19)
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The King of Staten Island (June 19)
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Fatale (June 19)
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Top Gun: Maverick (June 24)
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In the Heights (June 26)
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Free Guy (July 3)
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Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 3)
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (July 10)
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The Purge 5 (July 10)
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Tenet (July 17)
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Bob's Burgers: The Movie (July 17)
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Jungle Cruise (July 24)
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The French Dispatch (July 24)
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Morbius (July 31)
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Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (July 31)
The highly anticipated sequel to the 1986 blockbuster will see the 3x Academy Award-nominated star Tom Cruise reprise arguably his most iconic role to date as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, and put in charge of training a detachment of Top Gun graduates, including the son (Miles Teller) of his late friend Goose, for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
To meet the new pilot trainees from TOP GUN: MAVERICK, simply click on the "NEXT" button below!
Miles Teller plays Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Each of the new actors actually experienced the thrill of 1,600 pounds of force in F-18 Super Hornets, which were all specially outfitted with up to six IMAX-quality cameras to capture each actor as they did their best to pretend to pilot the ultra-powerful places, which were actually being operated by a trained Navy pilot in the other seat.
Monica Barbaro plays "Phoenix" in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Kosinski elaborates on the once-in-a-lifetime experience for his actors, “
The experience is thrilling but very physically grueling. The maneuvers that we were putting them through to tell this story were not something that you can just jump in and do. They all had to go through months of aerial training. We put them through a training course that Tom actually designed himself. He’s a licensed aerobatic pilot, and he was thrown into deep end when he did the first Top Gun without any training. So he knew that they would need to kind of work up to that level. So they started in Cessnas and then worked their way up aerobatic airplanes then into small single-engine jets before they were in the Super Hornet. Occasionally it made some of the actors sick and that even happens to experienced fighter pilots.”
Glen Powell plays “Hangman” in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films
Kosinski also explains how committed his actors had to be to get the shots they needed to make the film as real as possible. “
There’s no crew up there. I’m not up there with him, there’s no cinematographer, no hair and makeup. They are responsible for every aspect of the filmmaking process when they’re up in those airplanes.”
Jay Ellis plays "Payback" in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Danny Ramirez plays "Fanboy" in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Lewis Pullman plays "BOB" in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Monica Barbaro and Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose.”
Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.
Top Gun: Maverick features:
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Tom Cruise as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Miles Teller as Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw
Jennifer Connelly in an undisclosed role
Jon Hamm in an undisclosed role
Glen Powell in an undisclosed role
Lewis Pullman in an undisclosed role
Charles Parnell in an undisclosed role
Bashir Salahuddin in an undisclosed role
Monica Barbaro in an undisclosed role
Jay Ellis in an undisclosed role
Danny Ramirez in an undisclosed role
Greg Tarzan Davis in an undisclosed role
Ed Harris in an undisclosed role
Jake Picking in an undisclosed role
Raymond Lee in an undisclosed role
Jean Louisa Kelly in an undisclosed role
Val Kilmer as Vice Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky
Top Gun: Maverick flies into theaters June 26, 2020