Remember the times before streaming, before DVD’s? When we had VHS tapes? One of the most maddening parts of being a film fan and building your collection was having to wait until the studios to sell movies to rental stores for a hundred bucks a pop. They smartly figured that they’d make more money selling to video stores for that price for six months to a year before dropping the price to twenty bucks for the average Joes to pick up. The best you could hope for was to to buy a pre-viewed copy from a rental store a few months after it came out since most rental stores bought multiple copies to satisfy the demand. Only the biggest of the big movies came out for everyone immediately, movies that they knew EVERYONE would buy. Tim Burton’s Batman sticks out to me as one of those titles that I vividly recall buying the day it came out. It was an event.

Ok, enough with the VHS economics lesson. I remember that when Tony Scott’s Top Gun came out that it was not priced for everyone. My grandfather bought a copy anyway. He used to do that randomly. He paid through the nose for Return of the Jedi when that came out, too. I watched it constantly. The same went for Top Gun. Literally every morning I’d watch Maverick buzz the tower, lose that love that lovin’ feeling, play beach volleyball in his jeans, sex up Kellie McGillis, lose his best friend, and show Ice Man that he is.. dangerous. I saw that film as a kid more times than I could count.

I was crushed when Tony Scott took his own life back in 2012. Outside of my childhood love of Top Gun, he was responsible for some of the most entertaining films over his 30 year career. True Romance will forever reside in my top 10 films. At the time of his death he was attached to Jerry Bruckheimer’s Top Gun sequel, having met with Tom Cruise about the project two days before his death.

The project was cancelled at the end of 2012 but revived by Jerry Bruckheimer in June of 2013. I’d love to see an older present-day Maverick having moved into the Tom Skerritt position.

Now we’re one step closer to seeing a sequel to Top Gun, as Justin Marks (Disney’s upcoming live-action Jungle Book) has been hired ti write the sequel. Tom Cruise is still slated to return as Maverick in a story that would highlight the relevance of genuine Naval Aviators over unmanned drones.

What do you think of a Top Gun sequel? The original was almost thirty years ago. Could Top Gun 2 actually work?