Maverick to take on UAVs in 'Top Gun 2'

Tom Cruise, as Maverick in the original Top Gun

'Top Gun 2' to take on drones

That script, he says, will center on what many — including top Navy leaders — have called the coming end of manned fighter and attack aircraft. Indeed, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter "should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said recently.

But don't count out the fighter jocks just yet.

"The concept is, basically, are the pilots obsolete because of the drones? Cruise is going to show them that they're not obsolete. They're here to stay," Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of the original "Top Gun" and helping to helm its follow-on, told the Huffington Post.


'Top Gun 2' Producer Talks Tom Cruise Role, Drones - Hollywood Reporter - The Hollywood Reporter

Top Gun 2 will also be in 3D and Imax and will feature practical special effects, something that Cruise is known for. "As everyone knows with Tom, he is 100 percent going to want to be in those
airplanes shooting it practically," Ellison said.

As to the plot details, Ellison suggested that Maverick and his team of crack fighter pilots would take on the modern menace of drones. "This world has not been explored," he said, adding: "It is very much a world we live in today where it’s drone technology, and fifth-generation fighters are really what the United States Navy is calling the last man-made fighter that we’re actually going to produce, so it’s really exploring the end of an era of dogfighting."


 'Top Gun 2' to pit Maverick against drones