TOP GUN: MAVERICK Director Says The Movie Will Be Finished On Schedule; Jay Ellis Talks Insane Aerial Stunts

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Paramount Pictures was recently forced to push back Tom Cruise's highly anticipated Top Gun: Maverick from June to December 23, but since filming had already wrapped last year, it looks like director Joseph Kosinski and the team are still able to get some work in from home. 

While speaking with ComicBook, Kosinski revealed that, despite the global shutdown and release date delay, post-production on the long-awaited action sequel remains on schedule and he fully expects to finish everything up by its original June release date. After its finalized, they'll just end up holding the film for another six months until Christmas. 

"We are sticking to our schedule and finishing the movie just as if it were coming out on its original release date. Luckily, I'm in the home stretch of post-production where, despite all the restrictions on how you can work now, I'm able to continue doing my job and finish the movie. Which is pretty amazing. If I were in any other phase of the project, it would be hard to do that. But because I'm in the tail end of post, I'm able to do everything I need to, to finish it. So we're sticking to it and sticking to our schedule and finishing the movie and then just holding it for six months. Which is such an interesting thing to do, but it's the right decision because this is a movie that people need to see on the big screen. And if there's no big screen, then you don't want to release this movie. We want this to be a shared experience on the biggest screen possible."

In a separate interview with Entertainment Tonight, Jay Ellis (Insecure; Escape Room) spoke about his role in the film and shared new details about the insanely intense aerial training course Cruise put him and the cast through to get ready to shoot one of the biggest action films of all-time. He also says fans may have to see it twice just to get the full Top Gun experience and truly appreciate all the hard work they put in to create this unreal cinematic adventure.

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.