A couple of weeks ago rumours emerged that Paramount was getting the idea of making a sequel to Top Gun out of mothballs and putting it into development. However at the time, there was little word on whether director Tony Scott would be involved.
Well it seems whether they want him or not, Scott is keen to be involved, as he’s been talking to HitFix about his plans. He says, “I’m not waiting for a script. I’m going to do my homework. I’m going down to I think it’s Fallon, Nevada, down near New Mexico and it’s a whole different world now. These computer geeks — these kids play war games in a trailer in Fallon, Nevada and if we ever went to war or were in the Middle East or the Far East or wherever it is, these guys can actually fly drones. They are unmanned aircraft. They operate them and then they party all night.”
It sounds as if he’s planning something very different to the original, but as several people have pointed out, dog-fighting is now far less important than training pilots for long-range bombing runs.
It also appears Scott may have been one of the driving forces behind getting Top Gun 2 going, as he adds “It was funny, because I was on a plane actually coming back from Vegas, rock climbing in Red Rock, and the guy sitting next to me was all hung over. He must have been in his late 20’s and he was one of these kids. He said, ‘I partied all night.’ And I said, ‘What do you do?’ ‘I work [with unmanned aircraft in] the Air Force.’ But they operate these drones like it’s war games, but it’s for real… This world fascinated me, because it’s so different from what it was originally. But, I don’t want to do a remake. I don’t want to do a reinvention. I want to do a new movie.”
He wouldn’t be drawn on how Maverick (Tom Cruise) might fit into this, but as he suggests the movie will look at the end of the era of fighter pilots, there should be a role for him as an old hand who remembers how things once were. Don’t expect to see the movie for at least a couple of years though, as Scott plans to make another, as yet unknown, movie first.