As the highly anticipated sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, gets ready to fly into theaters with Tom Cruise back in the cockpit, director Joseph Kosinski and Cruise are opening up about their no CGI approach to recapturing the high altitude adrenaline rush of the ’80s classic. Part of the process involved shooting a whole lot of footage. We’re talking more than the entire length of a certain epic film trilogy.
“Out of a 12- or 14-hour day, you might get 30 seconds of good footage,” Kosinski told Empire. “But it was so hard-earned. It just took a very long time to get it all. Months and months of aerial shooting. We shot as much footage as the three Lord of the Rings movies combined. I think it was 800 hours of footage.”
According to Cruise, part of the reason for the sequel’s over-abundance of footage is that the actors were responsible for capturing their own performances during the short amount of time they got in the air:
“We had to teach the actors about lighting, about cinematography, about editing,” says star and producer Tom Cruise. “I had to teach them how to turn the cameras on and off, and about camera angles and lenses. We didn’t have unlimited time in these jets. If they were going up for 20-30 minutes, I had to make sure that we got what we needed.”
As for how much of that footage will appear in the movie remains to be seen. Obviously, the sequel won’t be 800 hours long, but as of this writing, Top Gun: Maverick hasn’t revealed its official runtime yet despite its release date coming up just on the horizon. The film maneuvers into theaters on May 27, 2022.
(Via Empire)