The original Top Gun movie just wouldn't have been the same without actor Tom Cruise. He may be strange, but that man knows how to act! However, the world almost got a Top Gun without Cruise at all, and it wasn't because the studio had another actor in mind—it was because Cruise didn't want the role.
Despite being new to the world of acting, Cruise wasn't originally interested in the role. The studio actually sent him multiple offers, and he rejected each one. However, director Jerry Bruckheimer finally got Cruise to change his mind by arranging for the actor to go on a ride-along with some real-life Blue Angels.
One of the most memorable things about the original Top Gun was Kenny Loggins' performance of the movie's single "Danger Zone." The single rose all the way to number two on the charts and it went platinum in multiple countries. However, this is another aspect of Top Gun that almost wasn't!
Loggins was not the artist originally considered for the now-classic song featured in the movie. First, "Danger Zone" was given to the band Toto, but producers didn't like the version they recorded. It was then given to REO Speedwagon, but again, producers weren't impressed. Finally, they gave Kenny Loggins a shot at it, and the rest is history!
(Image via Michael Ochs/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Image; Wikipedia)
Top Gun may be larger than life, but the film went to great lengths to make it feel as realistic and true to life as possible. They even went as far as hiring a retired Navy Vet as a technical editor to help point out things that civilians might not notice themselves.
Real Admiral Pete Pettigrew was hired to help maintain realism, but he wasn't allowed to be much help, as the director of the film would often override his notes about scenes. He also makes a brief cameo in the film as a bar patron.
The producers of Top Gun and the Navy worked closely together on the film, but things didn't always run smoothly for the two groups. The movie's crew was obviously first and foremost concerned with the success of the film, but the Navy often had better things to do than worry about an action movie.
During one filming session, director Tony Scott was unhappy with the lighting on an aircraft carrier. In order to get the lighting he wanted, he wrote a check to the ship's captain to alter course. The captain complied and Scott got his shot, but the check allegedly bounced when they tried to deposit it.
The Navy was very generous with its time and resources when it came to filming the original Top Gun. However, when it came to firing real missiles, the military told producers that, because of the high costs, they would only be able to launch two of them.
Production had no problems with this, and they used an effects company to supplement the footage with that of model missiles being launched. It turns out that the company did such great work with their models the Navy assumed the movie had fired more than two real ones and launched an investigation into it.
There was lots of off-screen drama and trouble on the set of Top Gun. However, in one instance, a genuine tragedy struck the production that left everyone shocked and sad. During the filming of one scene, a stunt actor, Art Scholl, died during an accident.
Scholl was filming plane scenes five miles off the coast of California when he lost control of the stunt plane. He radioed, "I have a problem – I have a serious problem," before crashing into the ocean. Unfortunately, his body was never able to be recovered, and the film was dedicated to his memory.
Top Gun is now a movie classic, but studio execs weren't so sure that it was going to be a runaway hit when the film was originally released. At an advance screening, the movie got lukewarm reviews from the audience, and the director and producer were worried that they had a flop on their hands.
However, that was far from the case! Despite mixed reviews from critics, audiences loved the movie—ticket sales grossed $357 million, despite a movie budget of only $15 million. The movie remained popular for years after its release and was officially preserved by the Library of Congress in 2015.
In the original Top Gun movie, Kelly McGillis' character, Charlie, is the love interest for Tom Cruise's character, Maverick. However, in real life, McGillis had fallen for another man on set—Barry Tubb, who played Leonard "Wolfman" Wolfe. After a humorous encounter, the two eventually became a couple.
On their meeting, Tubb said, "We were walking across the street and she actually fell down, and I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. She fell down on her face in the middle of the street and she had my heart." However, it doesn't seem the relationship was too serious, as the couple never took things any further.
Lovers riding off into the sunset is nothing new in Hollywood, but Top Gun: Maverick did things just a little differently than we're used to. Instead of riding, Cruise's character, Maverick, and his love interest, Penny, fly off into the wild blue yonder on a jet. But this wasn't just any jet!
In this final scene of the movie, the couple are actually in one of Tom Cruise's personal planes. The World War II P-51 jet really belongs to Cruise, and, because he has his real pilot's license, he actually flew the plane in the shot as well. He is nothing if not an interesting man!
Most of the military characters in Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick were given call signs, but one actor actually got the chance to pick his own. When it came time to give actor Miles Teller (who plays Bradley Bradshaw in the new film) his call sign, he offered up a suggestion that everyone loved.
Teller went with the call sign "Rooster" to reference the fact that his character is the son of Nick Bradshaw, who's call sign is "Goose" in the original film. It was a smart pick, and we're not surprised that the director and writers went along with it.
When it came time to film scenes for Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise insisted that they look as realistic as possible. A bunch of CGI action was not going to cut it for the eccentric actor. There were rumors that the new movie used no CGI whatsoever, and while that wasn't the case, it was almost that impressive.
The movie used a little CGI, but no more than it took to keep actors safe and the movie's budget somewhat reasonable. Firing military-grade weapons is ridiculously expensive, not to mention dangerous, so we guess we can forgive them for a tiny bit of CGI trickery!
The original Top Gun features an unforgettable, hilarious, and unintentionally homoerotic scene of greased-up men playing volleyball. So, it should be no surprise that Top Gun: Maverick featured a similar scene as an homage to the original. However, the first take didn't play out to Tom Cruise's liking.
Cruise was apparently so unimpressed with the physiques of the greased-up guys around him, that he told everyone to go home, work out, and reconvene in a few weeks after everyone was sufficiently ripped. Tom Cruise is a stickler for perfection, especially when it comes to men's bodies apparently!
Val Kilmer played Tom "Iceman" Kazansky in the original Top Gun film. He also reprised his role in the 2022 release of Top Gun: Maverick. However, tragedy struck Kilmer between these two performances. Because of surgery due to throat cancer, Kilmer has been rendered unable to speak normally or easily.
This problem seems like it would make reprising his former role impossible, but that wasn't the case. By using AI technology, producers were able to recreate Kilmer's voice so that he could appear in a scene in the new movie. It was a little bit creepy, but it was also an impressive feat from a technological point of view.
Big budget movies rarely stick to their original timeline. Actors have conflicting schedules, sets aren't available—these and all sorts of other problems crop up, making finishing on time an impossibility. However, even by glacial Hollywood standards, Top Gun: Maverick took forever to release. It's a wonder it saw the light of day at all!
The release for the new film was originally July 12, 2019. Well, that day came and went with no new movie in sight. Then, it was pushed back to June 26, 2020...and then once again was pushed back to December 23rd, 2020. Finally, after literal years of delays, Top Gun: Maverick was finally released in May of 2022.
It took forever for fans to finally get a much-anticipated sequel to the original Top Gun. However, judging by reviews from critics and fans, Top Gun: Maverick was well worth the wait. It took years for the stars to align to allow the sequel to move forward—it's been in the works for more than a decade.
Tom Cruise was dropping hints about a Top Gun sequel all the way back in the year 2000, but production didn't officially begin on the new movie until 2010. After the director of the original film, Tony Scott, died in 2012, the movie was put on the back burner, only to be revived and finally produced a few years later.
Could you imagine anyone else playing Maverick? We can’t. The role was offered to a number of A-listers including John Cusack, Patrick Swayze, Nicholas Cage, and Tom Hanks! Actually, the person that was “ideal” for the role was John Travolta. Gotta admit that he’s a smooth operator.
The producers assumed that Tom Cruise wouldn’t accept the role. However, Cruise took one flight in the F-14, and that put stars in his eyes. Who would have guessed that Top Gun would become one of his most iconic roles? Certainly not him or he would have jumped at it to begin with!
The Navy won’t say that Top Gun is a straight advertisement, but it did end up being one in the long run. Since the Navy played such an integral role in the making of the film (including props and terminology), it ended up being pretty dang authentic. The Navy took this chance.
Top Gun was a huge hit with young American men, and it even encouraged many to seek a future in the defense force. Not only did the Navy show Top Gun to new members, but it also set up a showing at the recruitment booths. Nothing is better than starting your first day with a movie.
A movie needs a theme song, and we’re not just talking about the music score. We mean what “Don’t You Forget About Me” is to The Breakfast Club and “Footloose” is to…well…Footloose! Top Gun’s main theme was “Danger Zone,” but you can’t forget about “Take My Breath Away.”
After the director, Joseph Kosinski, heard this song, he knew that there had to be an intense love scene between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. The scene was filmed months after the first day of filming, but it had to happen. The movie caused the song to shoot up the charts.
Both Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer are super into method acting – and we don’t mean that lightly. For Collateral, Cruise disguised himself as a FedEx worker and actually delivered packages. After filming The Doors, Kilmer needed therapy just to get out of character. These two are like meteors colliding on set.
Cruise and Kilmer got super into their roles, and that meant they would actually have conflict on set. For years, their rivalry persisted in Hollywood. It wasn’t until years later that the two would bury the hatchet. Good thing, too. Kilmer had to be in the sequel.
This wasn’t something many people were expecting. After all, McGillis played such a big part in the original series. However, she didn’t return for the sequel. Why? She wasn’t invited back. The actual reason hasn’t been revealed, but McGillis says she knows exactly why.
She told Entertainment Tonight, “I’m old and I’m fat and I look age-appropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about.” Instead, Cruise acted alongside Jennifer Connelly, who played the new love interest. Both ladies did a great job, but we do wonder what it would be like if Charlie came back.
The story for Top Gun? It came from a magazine article. Published in California Magazine in 1983, the article details Ehud Yonay’s experience with pilots in the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School. That’s also where the name of the movie comes from since this school is more commonly known as TOPGUN.
The article detailed the lives of a fighter pilot as they flew into Fightertown all the way to them drinking and “running through sleepy little towns at 100 miles an hour with no headlights.” Scary stuff, but it clearly made a great film. After jerry Bruckheimer read the article, he shared it with Don Simpson and the rest was history.
Confusing? Sorry – let us explain a little bit. The school which basically created Top Gun is called TOPGUN, and you’d think that they would love the movie. Wrong! Top Gun is known for its one-liners, but those who attend TOPGUN get into serious trouble for spouting off the dialogue.
In fact, it says in their rules that Top Gun dialogue is strictly prohibited! Those who are found in violation of spouting off the famous quotes are fined $5. You might think it’s because hearing the lines all the time would be annoying, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s about TOPGUN keeping its professional attitude.
Every character is so iconic that they have their own call signs. Maverick, Iceman, and Hollywood are actually more memorable than the characters’ actual names. However, there’s a reason even die-hard fans don’t know Goose’s real name – it’s never mentioned. We bet you can’t prove us wrong!
The origin of the call signs is also supposed to represent the character in some form or fashion. That’s obvious as Goose explains Iceman’s moniker and how it relates to his personality and “cool demeanor.” Goose, however? We’re not really sure how he got that one, and the film doesn’t lay it out for us either.
Got a crush on Kelly McGillis’s character? Charlotte Blackwood was an extremely intelligent astrophysicist who specialized in defense tactics and aided the Top Gun program. The crazy thing is that her character was actually based on a very real person. The person she was based on was Christine Fox.
Fox was a Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) employee as well as a “specialist in Maritime Air Superiority (MAS), the establishment and aggressive air defense of an imaginary perimeter around an aircraft-carrier battle group.” Fox has an even more impressive CV than Blackwood (as if that was even possible).
Initially, Tom Cruise was supposed to get $1 million for being the lead actor in Top Gun. At the time, it must have been a lot of money because the technical advisor, Pete Pettigrew, was told “We’re paying $1 million for Tom Cruise so we gotta show some flesh.”
That was why the locker room scene was brought in. Years later when the second movie was made, Tom Cruise would receive $12.5 million in up-front pay plus 10% of the first dollar gross. Guess he learned his lesson from the first movie. It was going to be a hit, and he deserved to cash in for it!
We know! This is sad news, and we hate to break it to you. Unfortunately, it’s true. The Top Gun award isn’t a real award. Maverick has a chance to win the prestigious Top Gun award, but he is forced to step away from the program after Goose’s death. That causes him to lose the award even though he does return.
Even though the award itself isn’t real, that doesn’t mean it isn’t based on something that’s actually a huge accomplishment. The TOPGUN program does award pilots with a patch instead of their name embossed on a plaque. The patch is a “universal symbol of aviation superiority around the world.”
We all love McGillis, but she almost didn’t get cast in the first place. Charlie was originally supposed to be an officer, but the Navy didn’t want two officers getting together and fraternizing. We can see why that might look a little bad on film. Filmmakers couldn’t do it without the Navy, so they had to fight.
They came back with the offer that they change her profession. After a bit of consideration, the Navy finally came back and accepted this. That’s when she was changed to be a consultant that would assess the pilots' performance within the Top Gun program. That was something the Navy was fine with.
In most films, the woman is shorter than the man, and in general, most women are shorter than men. However, not for Top Gun. Unfortunately for Tom Cruise, he has a bit of a reputation for being on the short side. He’s only 5’7” (nearly 5’8” if you want to throw that bit in there).
McGillis on the other hand stands 5’9” (and a half). This meant the producers had to do a little creative camera work to make her seem like she wasn’t taller than him. This is also mentioned as one of the reasons why she didn’t return to the sequel, although that bit is up for debate.
Because Tom Cruise insisted on having actual jets and using as little CGI as possible, flying the jets took a huge chunk of the movie’s budget. That being said, you can’t have Top Gun without awesome flight sequences. The movie would have been lame without it. The Department of Defense approved their use of the jets…at a cost.
To fly the jets, the producers needed to pay the military a total of $1.8 million – that’s $7,600 an hour. For this, they also got the use of Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego, four aircraft carriers, two dozen F-15 Tom Cats, F-5 Tigers, and A-4 Skyhawks. Some were flown by actual top-gun pilots as well.
Could you imagine Top Gun never existing? What a mistake that would have been. Paramount executives Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner didn’t like the script when they first got it. Because of that, it was immediately sidelined. It sat stagnant for a while until a new CEO came in.
CEO Ned Tanen then took over, and he came across this script called “Top Gun.” Interesting…so he started reading it. He loved the idea so much that he greenlit the film over a lunch meeting. He didn’t even have time to read the whole thing before giving it the go-ahead.
