Tom Cruise’s Top Gun 2 Is Getting A Major Update From The Original

Sometimes, you just need to add some new blood!

By Douglas Helm | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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The sequel to the beloved Tom Cruise classic Top Gun is finally coming to theaters in May, and it looks like it’s going to be epic in every way possible. That includes the theme song for the film. It’s been revealed that Johnny Marr, the legendary guitarist who made his name with British indie band The Smiths, collaborated with the equally legendary film composer Hans Zimmer to create the theme for Top Gun: Maverick.

Top Gun: Maverick is a direct sequel to the 1986 original, and Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer are both returning as their iconic characters. Newcomers to the series include Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Manny Jacinto, Ed Harris, Jon Hamm, and more. Joseph Kosinski is on as director with a screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Ehren Kruger, and Eric Warren Singer. We already knew that Hans Zimmer and Harold Faltermeyer would be working together for the score, but the addition of Johnny Marr for the theme song is certainly a welcome and awesome surprise.

This isn’t Marr and Zimmer’s first collaboration either. They worked on the score for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 together. Marr also made contributions to the Inception score. Recently, they collaborated again on the theme song for No Time to Die, where Johnny Marr played guitar on the Billie Eilish song. Marr revealed the news in an interview with Variety, where he said he was around while the theme song was being put together and they asked him to make it sound “epic.” We have no doubts he did. The score for the original Top Gun was plenty bombastic and it also featured some absolute 80’s classics, most notably “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, which is also set to reappear in the sequel. It just wouldn’t feel like Top Gun without Tom Cruise and “Danger Zone.”

Top Gun: Maverick follows Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, now working as a test pilot for the Navy after a long career. He soon finds himself training a group of Top Gun graduates for a dangerous mission. In the group of trainees is the son of Maverick’s late and RIO Nick “Goose” Bradshaw. The movie is sure to give us the same high-octane aviation action and camaraderie we saw in the original.

It’s great to see that Top Gun: Maverick is finally coming together. The release date was pushed over and over again. Sometimes due to scheduling conflicts for Tom Cruise, sometimes due to the COVID pandemic, and a variety of other factors. In total, the movie was pushed six times! We were supposed to see this movie back in 2019, but obviously, that didn’t work out. Now we finally get to see the return of Maverick.

If you’re ready to see Tom Cruise reprise one of his best roles, you don’t have much longer to wait. As long as the release date doesn’t get inexplicably pushed again, we should get to see Maverick in action and hear the epic theme song from Johnny Marr and Hans Zimmer when Top Gun: Maverick hits theatres on May 27, 2022.