Ever since production began on Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the’80s classic, Tom Cruise has been adamant that the movie will feature real flying and practical effects. In fact, the actor wouldn’t even agree to do the film unless the studio promised him that there would be “no CGI stuff,” which should come as no surprising considering Cruise’s reputation for routinely risking his life while making the Mission: Impossible films.
“I said to the studio, ‘You don’t know how hard this movie’s going to be. No one’s ever done this before,’” the actor told Empire back in January. “There’s never been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don’t know if there ever will be again, to be honest.”
True to his word, there is footage of Cruise definitely flying a jet. In a new interview posted to Skydance studio’s Twitter account, high speed fighter jets are seen rattling crew members and kicking up dust as they zoom overhead for the cameras. Sure enough, there’s Cruise right there in the cockpit, and there’s nothing CGI about it.
You can watch the high-octane video below:
No CGI here.
#TopGunMaverick #behindthescenes pic.twitter.com/oHn76X9208
— Skydance (@Skydance) June 10, 2020
After the Top Gun: Maverick trailer blew audiences away, director Joseph Kosinski revealed that one of the shots featured Cruise literally launching his jet off an aircraft carrier, which no actor had ever done before; it even required special permission from the Navy. “It was one of the most extreme aerial sequences that we could come up with,” Kosinski said. “Also, getting to do a real launch off a carrier and a real landing on a carrier — no one else has been able to ever do that in a movie before. Tom got to fulfill every kind of aviation dream that he had.”
For his next trick, Cruise will film a movie in space, so we’re really looking forward to hearing what kind of requests he’ll make to NASA when production blasts off.
(Via Skydance on Twitter)