It's Officially The End of an Era for Top Gun - MCE Notices | California State Portal

When David Ellison took the stage at CinemaCon 2026 to announce that Top Gun 3 was officially in development at Paramount Skydance, with Tom Cruise returning as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, the audience response was exactly what any studio chief wants to hear. Top Gun: Maverick grossed $1.49 billion worldwide in 2022, received 6 Academy Award nominations, and won the franchise its first Oscar, proving in finality that Tom Cruise is one of the last genuine movie stars alive.

A third movie was inevitable, and with Cruise on board for it, everything seemed set to go. However, Joseph Kosinski, the director who turned Maverick from an unexpected legacy sequel to a defining cinematic event, will not be returning for the third film. Kosinski is committed to back-to-back major productions for Apple and Universal, which makes Top Gun 3 a logistical impossibility. With a replacement on the way, Top Gun is on the brink of a brand-new era.

Top Gun 3 Is Losing Its Director

Paramount Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

To understand the stakes of Kosinski’s departure, it helps to understand precisely what he did with Maverick, which went further than just producing a sequel. Kosinski insisted on using practical aerial photography using real F/A-18 Super Hornets, with camera rigs mounted inside the cockpits and the actors themselves enduring real G-forces in the air. The visuals produced were unlike any other, and this is a revolutionary choice in a cinema era that is dominated by CGI.

There was a certain authenticity in these sequences that proved that practical filmmaking, when done well, could produce experiences that audiences could feel in ways that digital spectacle just couldn’t recreate. Maverick thus became more than a commercial success, ultimately becoming a reference point in the ongoing industry conversation about practical vs. digital filmmaking. The timing was right, and Cruise’s long-standing philosophy about how films should be made matched Kosinski’s perfectly.

It was clear that this wasn’t a one-time formula either, because F1, also directed by Joseph Kosinski, which followed in 2025, also received highly positive reviews and used the same formula, just with race cars. The combined two-film run of Maverick and F1 earned ten Oscar nominations, and the reason Kosinski is unavailable for Top Gun 3 is, in its own way, a measure of how well he did the job.

What the franchise loses goes beyond just a visual sensibility, as Kosinski was very close to the material. He was a creative stakeholder who understood how to honor the legacy as well as the sensibilities of the modern audience who would watch the sequel after more than three decades. Whoever steps into that role inherits a franchise that has half the work done, with the tone and the formula set, and they must operate within it without the benefit of having written it.

Who Could Replace Joseph Kosinski?

Rooster, wearing full flight suit, walks past fighter jets in front of Maverick in Top Gun Maverick

The assumption among most industry observers, once Kosinski’s departure became apparent, was that Paramount and Cruise would turn to Christopher McQuarrie to take the helm. The writer-director has served as Cruise’s closest creative collaborator for over a decade, directed four Mission: Impossible films, and contributed to the scripting of Maverick. He is also believed to have helped crack the story framework for Top Gun 3.

However, that assumption has been disproved, as McQuarrie is reportedly not in consideration, with sources indicating that the relationship cooled following the underperformance of the two-part Mission: Impossible finale. He is now attached to a Conan the Barbarian sequel with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a Battlefield adaptation with Michael B. Jordan.

Instead, a surprising shortlist has emerged. According to The InSneider, the names currently being considered include Jon M. Chu, Joachim Rønning, and the directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The common thread connecting all of them is a specific kind of professional profile of filmmakers capable of executing a major studio blockbuster under tight creative oversight.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Tom Cruise are reportedly seeking someone who will align closely with their vision, rather than imposing their own, so the search is clearly for a franchise director, not an auteur.

Jon M. Chu arrives off the back of Wicked, Joachim Rønning helmed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Tron: Ares, and Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah delivered Bad Boys: Ride or Die as a crowd-pleasing franchise entry. These are capable filmmakers, but they bring a different ethos to their movies, which is different from Kosinski’s. Under the leadership of any one of these directors, Top Gun 3 will take on a different shape and form, inevitably.

Can Top Gun Survive Another Director Change?

Tom Cruise as LT Pete "Maverick" Mitchell In Top Gun (1986), sitting on his plane in "Maverick." — Tom Cruise as LT Pete “Maverick” Mitchell In Top Gun (1986), sitting on his plane in “Maverick.”

The franchise has already answered this question once, and in the affirmative, with the large gap between the first and second Top Gun. The original movie was directed by Tony Scott, whose frenetic visual energy defined the film’s identity as much as Tom Cruise’s charisma did. Scott died in 2012, a full decade before the sequel arrived, and nobody seriously suggested that Maverick was diminished by his absence.

Kosinski made a film that honored Scott’s legacy without trying to replicate it, and the result was artistically and commercially superior to the original. This precedent is encouraging, as the franchise itself has proven more resilient than directorial continuity. Tom Cruise and a great story are the hinge that Top Gun relies on more than anything, and a Top Gun 3 wouldn’t even be possible without the actor.

Whoever takes the director’s chair must earn Cruise’s trust rapidly, work within the practical filming philosophy that he propounds, and deliver a movie that doesn’t make audiences wish that Kosinski had stuck around. The release timeline remains uncertain, with no new director confirmed, and 2028 seems to be a realistic projection for when the next movie will see the light of day.

It is not in doubt that the franchise has the bones to survive the transition. The cast, including Miles Teller and Glen Powell, is expected to return, but Top Gun‘s Kosinski era is definitely over, and perhaps a bit too soon. It remains to be seen what the next chapter will look like.