Why Top Gun 3 Can’t Be A Tom Cruise Movie
Although Top Gun: Maverick is the most successful Tom Cruise movie ever, there is no getting around the fact that Top Gun 3 can’t afford to be another vehicle for the star — if the sequel's story is to succeed. After a 36-year wait between franchise installments, it is fair to say that expectations were high for the endlessly delayed Top Gun: Maverick. To the surprise of many critics and even some fans, the long-awaited sequel managed to outdo expectations, with Top Gun: Maverick earning over a billion dollars at the box office while also managing to wow critics.
Central to the success of Top Gun: Maverick was the movie’s star, Tom Cruise. Like the original Top Gun, the sequel was a star vehicle of the charismatic screen veteran, and Cruise’s performance was one of Top Gun: Maverick’s most highly praised elements, adding pathos and maturity to the original movie's cocksure antihero. Unfortunately, the Top Gun franchise’s next outing can’t rely on the star so heavily.
Related: How Much Money Top Gun: Maverick Has Made (& Why)
Although Top Gun andTop Gun: Maverick were both Cruise’s movies through and through, the closing scenes of the latter make it impossible for Top Gun 3 to follow this approach. Top Gun: Maverick gave Cruise’s character a well-earned happy ending, so for him to go through another character arc, Maverick would need to unlearn all of the life lessons that he internalized in the sequel. This would be too bleak a twist for the sequel to recover from and would ruin the franchise's escapist tone. Top Gun 3 could make a mentor out of Cruise’s character, but Maverick can’t be the center of the series anymore since the character has finally earned his retirement and deserves a chance to hand his role on to the
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