'Top Gun 3': Glen Powell Offers Interesting Comment About Another Sequel

By Daniel S. Levine

Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell represented the blockbuster at the Golden Globes Tuesday night, where he could not avoid facing a question about a third movie in the franchise. Powell joked that the decision is "above my pay grade." The actor starred as Lt. Jake "Hangman" Seresin in Maverick and also played real-life aviator Tom Hudner in Devotion.

"Above my pay grade," Powell told Variety on the Golden Globes red carpet. "It feels like it's less vague than it was at one point, so we'll see." The movie was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Original Song for "Hold My Hand."

This was not the first time Powell noted that making a Top Gun 3 isn't up to him. In a May 2022 interview with Indiewire, Powell said it is all up to Tom Cruise, who reprised his role as Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, and co-produced the movie. The Hidden Figures star added that Cruise would also need to figure out more crazy plane stunts to justify another Top Gun movie.

"I think Tom, basically, his sort of motto at the beginning of this thing is, if you can't beat the earlier movies, there's no reason in doing it at all," Powell explained. "There's no reason in just adding another movie to the filmography of the world if it doesn't contribute or beat the original."

Miles Teller, who played Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, is also pushing for a third movie. In July, he told Entertainment Tonight he was lobbying Cruise to do so. "That would be great, but that's all up to TC," Teller said. "It's all up to Tom. I've been having some conversations with him about it. We'll see."

Teller told ScreenRant he even had an idea for Top Gun: Rooster. "I've been pitching it. We'll see what happens. I don't know. I think it's interesting," Teller said in May 2022. "Obviously, everybody was begging Tom to do a sequel right after the first one came out. I think this movie puts a nice bow on it; it really kind of wraps it up, but we'll see. I'm available."

Top Gun: Maverick is by far the top-grossing movie released in 2022 domestically, with $718.3 million in North America. The movie was also a big success internationally and was the first 2022 movie to pass $1 billion at the global box office. It now stands in second place, behind Avatar: The Way of Water, on the highest-grossing 2022 movies chart. Top Gun: Maverick, released 36 years after the original Top Gun, is now available to stream on Paramount+. 

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