Top Gun: Maverick Super Bowl Trailer Drops You In A Cockpit With Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise as Maverick in Top Gun Maverick

It was a full 34 years ago that Tom Cruise first got in a jumpsuit to play Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the original Top Gun, and his career has gone in some wild directions in the time since then. This summer, however, he'll be back playing one of the roles that turned him into a bona fide star early in his career, and thanks to the celebration surrounding the Super Bowl, we have a brand new look at Top Gun: Maverick that you can watch right now:

This isn't the longest look we've had at Top Gun: Maverick, but that makes a fair bit of sense given that the latest trailer for the film just launched a few weeks ago in mid-December. Instead, this Super Bowl spot seems to be more about providing a particular tone, and that it does very well. It feels like it is designed to make you feel like your pulse is pounding right along with Maverick in the cockpit of his jet, with the heavy breathing, stressed dialogue, and quick editing all creating a whole lot of tension.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, who previously worked with Tom Cruise on 2013's sci-fi feature Oblivion, Top Gun: Maverick catches up with its titular protagonist, who is still flying around while most of his contemporaries have taken promotions and advancements in rank. Instead, he's avoided those honors so that he can stay in the sky and at the helm of his plane. This leads him to become the teacher of a new group of Top Gun graduates, including Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of the late Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, who famously died in the first film.

You only get very brief glimpses of some of them in this short spot (clocking in at less than 30 seconds), but Tom Cruise and Miles Teller are notably surrounded by an excellent ensemble of actors in the new feature, including Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Ed Harris, Manny Jacinto, and Val Kilmer – who we learned would be reprising his role as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky last summer.

A Top Gun sequel has been in the works for years and years now, originally going to be a film helmed by the director of the original, the late Tony Scott, but now Top Gun: Maverick is just a few months away from hitting theaters around the globe. Coming out in mid-summer, it's anticipated to be one of the most exciting releases of the season, and you'll be sure that we'll be following it closely. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest news and updates about the upcoming blockbuster, and prepare to check it out on the big screen in on June 26th.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.