Joseph Kosinski will not be returning to direct Top Gun 3. According to multiple reports, following Paramount’s CinemaCon announcement of the third film, Kosinski’s commitments with Apple and Universal have made him unavailable for it, despite Top Gun: Maverick becoming a $1.5 billion phenomenon.
F1 also further cemented Kosinski’s status as a certified hitmaker, and clearly, he is so hotly in demand that he will not be able to return to the very franchise that started it all. With Tom Cruise returning as Maverick and Jerry Bruckheimer doing a second act as producer, the director’s chair remains empty. Here’s who could fill it.
Lee Isaac Chung Handles Legacy Sequels Well
Lee Isaac Chung is best known for Minari, the deeply personal family drama that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. On its face, that’s about as far from Top Gun as a filmography gets, but Chung has already made the leap to studio tentpole filmmaking with Twisters, the 2024 legacy sequel that proved he could handle large-scale spectacle while keeping the human element at the center of it all.
That’s precisely the balancing act that Top Gun needs. Maverick worked because the dogfights meant something emotionally, not just visually. Chung has shown he understands how to make a blockbuster feel huge and still intimate, and a Top Gun movie that loses intimacy loses the biggest quality that made Maverick special.
Brad Bird’s Eye For Action Makes Him Perfect
Brad Bird’s resume is dominated by animation, with big names like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Iron Giant. However, his biggest live-action feature, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, is widely considered one of the best entries in the franchise and a masterclass in staging large-scale action with absolute geographical clarity.
Naturally, that is the skill that the next Top Gun needs the most. Aerial combat is notoriously difficult to shoot in a way that feels coherent, because the audience getting disoriented is a real risk. Kosinski’s IMAX-native approach in Maverick set a new standard for how legible high-speed action should be. Bird’s instincts for spatial storytelling, honed over decades of animation where every shot has to be composed from scratch, would translate to the cockpit in ways that few live-action directors could match.
J.J. Abrams Has A Proven Track Record That Makes Him A Good Fit
J.J. Abrams has spent his career proving that he can take over other people’s legacy franchises and make them feel both reverent and refreshed, be it Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Trek, or Mission: Impossible III. He understands how to honor what came before while pushing the franchise forward, which is exactly the tightrope that Top Gun 3 must walk without Kosinski.
Abrams also has a genuine affinity for practical-feeling spectacle and characters who feel like real people under real pressure, even in the most fantastical of settings. The risk with Abrams is his tendency toward mystery-box plotting, which a Top Gun film doesn’t need, but his track record with legacy sequels makes him a serious contender either way.
Christopher McQuarrie Seems Like The Obvious Choice
McQuarrie isn’t just a random name on a list, but has reportedly been floated as the most likely replacement for Kosinski several times, and for good reason. He co-wrote Top Gun: Maverick itself and is currently working on the script for the threequel alongside Ehren Kruger, meaning he already has more institutional knowledge of this story than anyone else under consideration.
As a director, McQuarrie has helmed multiple Mission: Impossible entries with Cruise, including Rogue Nation, Fallout, and the two-part Dead Reckoning saga, giving him a longer working relationship with Cruise than any other filmmaker. He knows how Cruise likes to shoot action, and he knows his material intimately and has a proven ability to deliver large-scale set pieces that feel grounded. If Paramount wants continuity above all else, McQuarrie is the safest and most logical choice, which makes him a favorite.
James Mangold Fits The Profile Without Trying
If Top Gun 3 wants a director capable of making something that feels like a genuine final chapter rather than just another sequel, James Mangold is the answer. Mangold has already proven he can close out a legacy franchise with real emotional depth in Logan, delivering one of the most acclaimed superhero films ever made by treating the genre’s conventions with total seriousness.
He followed that with Ford v Ferrari, a film about speed, rivalry, and obsession with machines that shares obvious DNA with Top Gun’s themes, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which saw him take over a beloved Harrison Ford franchise and deliver a send-off that balanced spectacle with genuine pathos for its aging hero. Mangold has a gift for handling beloved characters with huge fan followings and can end their stories well.