Tom Cruise Celebrates 38 Years Since the Original Top Gun: 'It's Incredible to Look Back'

Tom Cruise is celebrating almost four decades since taking to the skies.

On May 13, the actor-producer, 61, shared photos from the set of the 1986 original. Top Gun on Instagram in honor of the film’s 38th anniversary.

The photos show behind-the-scenes pictures of him on set with the film’s director Tony Scott, who died in 2012 at the age of 68, as well as a photo of him sitting with the film’s cast in an air hangar-turned-classroom set.

One throwback photo shows the actor smiling during a conversation with producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Another shows Cruise filming in 2022 Top Gun: Maverick as he stares at the famous photo of him and co-star Val Kilmer shaking hands at the end of the original film.

“It’s incredible to look back on thirty-eight years Top Gun,” he wrote in the caption. “To the fans who have been with us since the beginning, it wouldn’t be Top Gun Day without you.”

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Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in Top Gun 1986. Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

Cruise’s original Top Gun the film became an instant hit when it hit theaters on May 16, 1986. The film follows his character Pete “Maverick” Mitchell as he attends the US Navy’s Combat Weapons School, better known as Top Gun. The film stars Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis and Kilmer, 64, as Maverick’s arch-rival and eventual ally Tom “Iceman” Kazansky.”

Top Gun he was the highest-grossing film at the domestic box office that year. She won one Academy Award, for Best Original Song, at the 59th Academy Awards in 1987, among a total of four nominations.

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Decades later, Cruise reunited with producer Bruckheimer, 80, to film a sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, which similarly captured audiences’ imaginations as the highest-grossing film of 2022 domestically, grossing $1.5 billion worldwide. In the sequel, Maverick returns to Top Gun to train a new generation of pilots – including characters played by Miles Teller and Glen Powell, among others – for new missions with the Navy.

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Val Kilmer, Barry Tubb and Tom Cruise in Top Gun from 1986.

Paramount/Courtesy Everett

Many have speculated about the future of the franchise given the incredible success Maverick. The Hollywood Reporter reported in January that a third Top Gun the film was in development. In March, producer Bruckheimer told PEOPLE that he was working on putting together a new feature.

“We pitched Tom a story that he liked. But he’s a very in-demand actor and has a lot of films lined up, so we’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education