Top Gun: These 10 actors failed to play Maverick instead of Tom Cruise

In 1986, Tom Cruise flew to the heights with Top Gun. Noticed in Taps, Outsiders, Risky Business or Legend in the early 80s, who was only a rising star becomes THE new face of American cinema thanks to the success of Tony Scott’s feature film, which rakes in more than 350 million dollars worldwide for a budget of only 15 million greenbacks.

At the time, even before filming, Cruise was aware that best gun is a major step “superior” even in his career. He is thus involved in the production process, with the approval of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and participates in all the preparatory meetings, from the sets to the customs through photography. And the scenario, of course, which he develops with his producers for a month.

“I saw – cinematically – what they were going to do”remembers the comedian in the Top Gun Maverick press kit. “But the script wasn’t great. It didn’t work. There was no real character with Maverick. script, and I said that in my opinion it was a film about competition, about the honour, a film about friendship, about sacrifice and stakes and mistakes, and coming to terms with those mistakes”.

Convinced by the project, the actor also has two requirements: to shoot in a real F-14, and to fly with the Blue Angels, the Navy demonstration team which offers air shows across the United States. “It was a great flight. For the first time, I felt the different levels of G-force. You can read, learn about G-force, but you don’t understand it until you learn it. didn’t live. It was a great robbery. They let me do whatever I wanted – and I kept going until about 5G. months to figure out if I was going to commit to the movie or not, I was then already convinced that I was going to do it”.

The rest is legend, and continued thirty-six years later with Top Gun Maverick, acclaimed by the public (it is the best film of the post-COVID era according to AlloCiné viewers) and very lucrative at the box office ($400 million across the Atlantic, plus $800 million worldwide). Yet, as is always the case in Hollywood, many comedians have been translated, even approached, for the role of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. A look back at ten actors who almost flew away instead of Tom Cruise.