Top Gun: Maverick was the surprise hit of 2022. Having been delayed for two years due to the Covid pandemic, Tom Cruise’s return to the Top Gun franchise was nothing short of spectacular in terms of both critic and audience reviews as well as its $1.4 billion box office haul. Cruise’s co-star Jennifer Connelly has now called for Cruise to be recognized with a nomination for Best Actor at this year’s Academy Awards for his “amazing” performance in the movie.

With the Oscar nominations about to be revealed, there are some who have been touting Cruise as potential dark horse nominee in the Best Actor category, a group that is expected to include the likes of Austin Butler for Elvis and Brendan Fraser for The Whale. While Top Gun: Maverick is pure blockbuster fare that usually gets ignored by the Academy when it comes to the top categories, Connelly hopes that Cruise will get the recognition she believes he deserves. She told Variety:

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“He’s extraordinary. He does an amazing job in the movie. He’s extraordinary as a person and fantastic as an actor, and I think that he is just perfect. He embodies that character so beautifully, and I think he absolutely deserves it. I think that the film is a really well-made film, and it’s really hard to make a film like that. Also, thinking about Tom’s work, think of the things that he did for that role. Besides all the stuff on the ground and how wonderful he is in those scenes and creating those relationships…I think the relationship he has with Miles’ character is so beautiful and moving. But the work that he did to accomplish those flying sequences, it’s something else.”

Will Tom Cruise Take to The Skies Once More For Top Gun 3?

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That is a question that no one was asked before Top Gun: Maverick hit cinemas in the summer. Having spent two years in limbo, waiting on a release date that would allow the movie to get the cinematic experience Paramount wanted for it, the sense that the film was not going to perform as well as expected was starting to creep in. However, from the opening weekend it became clear that Top Gun: Maverick was a legacy sequel that more than proved its reason for existing. By the time the movie became the highest grossing movie of the year, surpassing Marvel movies, Jurassic World and more, thoughts immediately turned to a third movie.

While right now it seems like a no-brainer, the future of the Top Gun franchise rests on whether there is still more story to be told and, according to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, it all relies on Tom Cruise. He previously said:

“He’s in the middle of shooting Mission Impossible, he’s got a lot of very difficult, hard stunts he’s doing…It’s not the time to take attention away from what’s important to him right now. Is there another story that is compelling enough that we need to go back? It seems to me at the end of this film that Maverick has some gas left in the tank. He’s not settling down.”