The critically acclaimed legacy sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, has emerged victorious at this year’s Oscar ceremony. The long-awaited sequel to the 1986 classic Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick sees Hollywood icon and movie star Tom Cruise return to the role of Maverick after all these years.Top Gun: Maverick was nominated for Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards against the likes of All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking, and while it did not walk away with the big prize, Top Gun: Maverick still leaves with a golden statue in tow.Alongside Best Picture, Top Gun: Maverick was nominated for Best Sound, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Song for “Hold My Hand,” ultimately winning for Best Sound.

Top Gun: Maverick picks up after more than thirty years since the release of the first Top Gun, and follows Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) who has been of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators for just as long. Feeling that he is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot, Maverick has dodged 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.”

Directed by Joseph Kosinski and written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, from a story conceived by Peter Craig and Justin Marks, Top Gun: Maverick stars Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, both of whom reprise their roles from the 80s original, and introduces Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris.

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Steven Spielberg Has Thanked Tom Cruise & Top Gun: Maverick for Saving Hollywood

tom cruise top gun maverick
Paramount Pictures
 

Not only is Top Gun: Maverick beloved by both critics and audiences alike (it currently holds a supremely fresh 96% critics score, and a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes), but it has also been hailed by filmmaking icon Steven Spielberg for saving “Hollywood’s ass.”

“You saved Hollywood’s ass, and you might have saved theatrical distribution,” Spielberg said to Cruise when the pair met face-to-face the recent Oscar nominees luncheon in Los Angeles. “Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.”

Spielberg and Cruise have of course collaborated before on the likes of War of the Worlds and Minority Report, and the director could not pass up the chance to thank his friend and colleague for bringing audiences back to theaters after the worry and closures caused by the pandemic. And bring audiences back to theaters it surely did. Released back in May last year, Top Gun: Maverick soared to huge success at the global box office, grossing over $1 billion, with Cruise and the team behind Top Gun: Maverick resisting the urge to land the sequel on streaming platforms too soon. Clearly a very smart move indeed.