After seven delays, the Tom Cruise-headlined Top Gun: Maverick is heading to the Cannes Film Festival…
If you’re keeping count, the blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick has thus far been delayed by our maths seven times so far. It was originally set to open in 2019, before parent company Paramount Pictures knocked it back to June 26th 2020. And we all know what happened in 2020.
Every major blockbuster that was set for release that summer encountered some degree of delay, but pretty much all of them have now seen the light of day. We’re just waiting on animation Minions 2, but the likes of Fast & Furious 9, Wonder Woman 1984, Tenet, Free Guy, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, In The Heights and Jungle Cruise have all had their moment on the big screen.
Which just leaves Top Gun: Maverick as the last live action outlier from two years ago. The film had wrapped production and was pretty much done at the time the world went into its first lockdown back in March 2020, and there had been offers from streaming companies to buy the film off the studio (Paramount had form here already, banking over $100m apiece for films such as Coming 2 America and The Tomorrow War).
But star Tom Cruise was reportedly adamant this one got a cinema release, and Paramount has thus been keen to unleash the movie at a point where it might get some of its rumoured $150m investment back.
Whilst it was finding a date, there’s been the occasional report from someone who’s seen the film, who in turn has praised it to high heaven. But it’s primarily been sat in the vaults at the studio awaiting its new date.
Which means the announcement that the film is set to make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival a monumental one. Not just because it’s a signifier that Cannes remains very much open for business, but also it’s the end of a journey for lockdown’s last delayed live action blockbuster from that summer.
The movie will be unveiled at Cannes in May 2022, and then it’s getting an actual big screen release – and very big screens are reportedly required – on May 27th 2022.
After that, Paramount has two more Tom Cruise movies up its sleeve, with Mission Impossible 7 and Mission Impossible 8 in various stages of production. Those have both been put back a few times too, and are set to mark Cruise’s exit from that particular franchise, in front of the camera at least. For now, it’s fingers crossed for Paramount that Top Gun: Maverick proves worth the extensive wait…
