'Top Gun 3' officially confirmed, Tom Cruise to return

It's time to return to the danger zone.

A third "Top Gun" film has officially been confirmed, with Tom Cruise set to return.

The news was announced at Paramount's presentation during the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas on April 16, with Paramount Pictures Co-Chair Josh Greenstein revealing the sequel is "in development with a script underway, reuniting Tom Cruise and [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Reports first swirled in early 2024 that a third "Top Gun" film was in the works coming off the rousing success of the second installment, "Top Gun: Maverick." Cruise reprised his role of daring pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the 2022 hit, a long-awaited follow-up to the original 1986 blockbuster.

Grossing $1.5 billion worldwide, "Maverick" provided a shot in the arm to movie theaters in 2022 amid their recovery from COVID-19 closures, and it stands as the fifth-highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. It also received six Academy Award nominations, including best picture, and won the Oscar for best sound.

The rest of the cast of "Top Gun 3" hasn't been confirmed, though "Maverick" introduced a new set of stars who could be back, including Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman and Monica Barbaro. In 2024, Powell suggested he would reprise his role and even cryptically hinted he knew when filming would start.

A director for "Top Gun 3" also hasn't been announced. "Maverick" was helmed by Joseph Kosinski, who took over directing duties after original "Top Gun" director Tony Scott died in 2012.

During a 2025 interview on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, Christopher McQuarrie, who cowrote "Maverick" with Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer, confirmed a story idea was in place for "Top Gun 3," based on a pitch by Kruger.

"It's already in the bag," he said on the podcast. "I already know what it is. It wasn't hard. I thought it would be. And that's a good place to go from. You walk into the room going, 'Come on. What are we going to do?' And Ehren Kruger pitched something, and I went, 'Mmm, actually...' And we had one conversation about it. The framework is there."

Cruise is set to return to the world of "Top Gun" after he seemingly closed the book on his other big action franchise, "Mission: Impossible," which released its supposedly last installment in 2025: "The Final Reckoning." The actor will next be seen "Digger," a dark comedy from Alejandro Iñárritu out this fall. While teasing the film at CinemaCon, Iñárritu said that "this role may be his most challenging."

Contributing: James Powel, USA TODAY