Featured Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Topics: Tom Cruise, Film and TV, Celebrity
Shola Lee
Top Gun: Maverick has been a hit among fans, but the sequel nearly had a very different opening.
Tom Cruise returned to our screens as the one and only Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell on 25 May.
While the film has already been a smash hit, securing more than $300 million across the globe, it nearly had a very different opening sequence.
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The second film picks up 30 years after the original and sees Maverick '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 specialised 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. Bradley Bradshaw'.
The opening scene for the new movie initially showed Cruise's iconic character paying tribute to Goose.
Speaking to Variety, film editor Eddie Hamilton explained that fans could have seen 'Maverick stood looking out to sea. He would say, ‘Talk to me, Goose’. In a way, that was us kind of catching up with the beginning of the third act'.
"But it felt like too much of a downer, and we ultimately decided that it was slightly confusing, because people were like, ‘Wait, is this as a flashback? What is it?’
"So we got rid of that and we faded to black beautifully on that nice aerial shot of the aircraft carrier. Then we take a moment and fade up on Mav."
While the touching tribute would've been a welcome addition from fans of the film, it would probably make them cry too.
Still, the opening that actually made it into the film did pay homage to the original, with Hamilton noting that: "This opening was important that everyone who loved Top Gun, sat down in the theatre, and immediately felt like we really cared about their experience, that we were treating the original movie with respect, and honouring Tony Scott.
“Within two minutes, we wanted everybody to be in. Also, to take the very state of the art technologies in terms of cinematography, sound, and music and editing and give people a great cinema experience."
And they certainly did, because the film was a resounding success.
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