Top Gun: Maverick Shot So Much Footage You Couldn’t Even Watch it All in a Month

Top Gun: Maverick may have been dethroned as the highest-grossing film of 2022, but it’s still thriving. The Tom Cruise-led sequel hit Paramount+ in December and its already broken records for the streaming site in addition to having major success with its DVD and Blu-ray sales. Recently, Paramount has dropped some fun content in honor of the movie, and many of the people involved with making the film have been sharing interesting behind-the-scenes information. During Deadline‘s new interview with editor Eddie Hamilton, it was revealed that there is a whole lot of extra footage from the film that was never used.

“800 to 814 hours,” Hamilton said of the movie’s total footage. “It was quite honestly very overwhelming at times. There was one day in March, 2019 when they had 27 cameras running because there were four jets up in the air with various cameras on them, and two units filming on the ground, which added up to 27 cameras. And I remember getting so much footage the next morning and just thinking this was going to be very difficult. Also, the days were very long when we were filming the aerial sequences, it was just really intense. And the thing is, when you’ve got a lot of footage like that and a movie like Top Gun, it has to be awesome from beginning to end, because the whole audience wants it to be awesome.”

Hamilton continued, “So, I have all the footage broken down and labeled so I can find stuff super fast. But the main thing is to try and stay calm and not get overwhelmed. But, honestly, there were months where I didn’t sleep very well and I was just dreaming of closeups of Hangman and Phoenix and Rooster and Maverick. Literally every night I’d go to sleep and all I would see is their faces in my dreams. That’s just how engrossed you get in the raw material and in the project that you are doing. Plus, the immense pressure of delivering this sequel after 30 years and wanting it to be brilliant.”

Will There Be a Top Gun 3?

Top Gun: Maverick earned an impressive $1.4 billion at the box office as well as excellent Rotten Tomatoes scores (96% critics rating and a 99% audience rating). Naturally, fans are wondering if there will be a Top Gun 3. While there are no current plans to make a threequel, director Joseph Kosinski recently spoke at Deadline‘s Contenders LA3C panel and addressed the possibility of another film.

“Is there another story that is compelling enough that we need to go back?” Kosinski asked. “It seems to me at the end of this film that Maverick has some gas left in the tank. He’s not settling down.” 

Top: Gun Maverick is now streaming on Paramount+.