Jerry Bruckheimer Interview - Tom Cruise Wouldn't Make Top Gun: Maverick Without Val Kilmer
If you've watched a movie at any time in the past 50 years, there's a good chance Jerry Bruckheimer was involved in making it. Flashdance, Armageddon, Beverly Hills Cop, Con Air, Black Hawk Down, Bad Boys, Pirates of the Caribbean, Days of Thunder, The Rock, and National Treasure all come from the legendary Hollywood producer, as do the TV series CSI, Without a Trace, and Cold Case. Even with all of this success, there is one movie that perhaps stands as his greatest achievement - Top Gun. Ahead of this week's release of Top Gun: Maverick, I sat down with Bruckheimer to discuss where these cinematic spectacles fall in a landscape of long-running mega franchises and superhero fatigue.
"I do this to entertain audiences. That's where I get my kicks. I've certainly been around long enough, had a terrific career. And what I want to do is get people together in a theatre to laugh, and cry, and cheer, and make their life for two hours just a little better, and feel a little better when they walk out than when they walked in. That's it."
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Bruckheimer shuts down the idea that Maverick might be an 'important' movie in the current landscape, but the fact is Top Gun is very different to a lot of modern movies. While technically a sequel, it comes almost 40 years after the original with very little supporting media in between to call Top Gun a bona fide franchise. It feels a lot more like Bruckheimer's movies of the '80s and '90s, built off exciting action scenes and box office draw movie stars. In a lot of ways, Tom Cruise feels like one of the last of the movie stars. If they don't make 'em like Top Gun anymore, it's because stars like Cruise aren't around to
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