Cruise in Top Gun sequel 30 years on

UNITED STATES: When it came to planning a sequel to Top Gun, Tom Cruise never felt the need for speed.

Ever since the 1986 film turned him from a hot Hollywood property into a global megastar, rumours of a follow-up have surfaced - only to be shot down like a MiG-28 that picked on the wrong US fighter pilot. Cruise, 54, finally confirmed yesterday that Top Gun 2 is on the way. He has not lost that loving feeling after all.

‘‘It is definitely happening,’’ he told Australian TV, while promoting his latest film, The Mummy. ‘‘It’s true, it’s true,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m going to start filming it, probably in the next year. I know. It’s happening. It is definitely happening. You’re the first people I’ve said this to.’’

With its spectacular flying sequences and Cold War-era triumphalism, Top Gun made US$356 million at the box office and became a famously effective recruitment tool for the US Navy. In exchange for script approval, the Pentagon lent the director, Tony Scott, technical advisers, 20 fighter pilots, two aircraft carriers and a fleet of fighter jets. They only charged for the planes’ fuel, Scott said.

Cruise, then best known for his breakout role in Risky Business, starred as Lieutenant Pete ‘‘Maverick’’ Mitchell, a cocky student at the US Navy’s elite fighter pilot training academy whose extraordinary flying skills are compromised by his reckless temperament. - The Times