New Top Gun: Maverick image finds Tom Cruise leading a new group of pilots

Principal photograph on Top Gun: Maverick was completed well over two years ago but the Tom Cruise film has remained grounded due to multiple COVID-related delays. At the moment, Top Gun: Maverick is slated to hit theaters this May and USA Today has released a new image from the film featuring Tom Cruise leading a group of new pilots.

I’m not exactly holding my breathe that Top Gun: Maverick‘s latest release date will stick, but it would be nice to see Tom Cruise risking life and limb on the big screen once again. The much-anticipated sequel will once again focus on Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise), one of the Navy’s best aviators and test pilots. When Maverick is tasked with training a new group of Top Gun graduates for a special mission, he also has to deal with the past when he runs into Rooster, the son of Maverick’s wingman and late best friend Goose. Rooster is played by Miles Teller, who you can see standing behind Cruise in the Top Gun: Maverick image above.

The official synopsis for Top Gun: Maverick:

After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster”, the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose”. Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.

Our own Chris Bumbray caught the first 12 minutes of Top Gun: Maverick at CinemaCon last year, and from the sounds of things, we’re in for a hell of a good time. Top Gun: Maverick is set to hit theaters on May 27, 2022.