Paramount Pictures’ upcoming sequel to the iconic 80s action flick Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, has now been delayed so many times that you would be forgiven for completely forgetting it even exists. Well, a detail that’s sure to jog your memory and ink Top Gun: Maverick onto your calendar is that the long-awaited sequel features the return of Val Kilmer as fan-favorite fighter pilot om “Iceman” Kazansky. Speaking with Total Film, director Joe Kosinski discussed bringing the actor back, and cannot wait for audiences to finally see Kilmer reunite with Tom Cruise.
Val Kilmer’s role as “Iceman” in the first Top Gun is by far one of the actor’s most celebrated roles, with many fans of the 1986 classic singling him out as their favorite character. Top Gun: Maverick will see Kilmer reprise the beloved role all these years later, with Iceman now an instructor alongside Tom Cruise’s Maverick, as well as becoming a four-star admiral and serving as Chief of Naval Operations.
“That was a huge, huge get — having Val come back to play Iceman. To get to work with an actor of that caliber, to see the chemistry, the camaraderie between him and Tom, and to have those two characters reunite in this film, was a really special moment, and one of my favorite parts of the film.”
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Val Kilmer has faded from both the public eye and the big screen somewhat in recent years due to the actor’s two-year battle with throat cancer, and last year Kilmer’s voice was able to be re-created through AI technology using archival audio. After such struggles in his personal life, it will be great to see the actor back on the silver screen in one of his most cherished roles.
Top Gun: Maverick Sees Tom Cruise’s Character Take the Son of His Late Best Friend, Goose, Under His Wing
Paramount Pictures
Top Gun: Maverick will pick up more than thirty years after director Tony Scott’s 1986 original. Picking up in real-time, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) has provided more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators. He feels he is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him.
When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: ‘Rooster’, the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka ‘Goose’. Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.
Top Gun: Maverick will finally premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2022, before being theatrically released in the United States on May 27, 2022, by Paramount Pictures. The sequel was originally scheduled to be released back in 2019 before facing several delays due to complexities behind the scenes and the COVID-19 pandemic.
