Tom Cruise to Return for TOP GUN 2?

Ready your aviators and '80s power ballads, TOP GUN fans; Maverick's coming back.

BroadwayWorld has learned that Skydance's David Ellison and Dana Goldberg are developing a TOP GUN sequel, and it looks like they'll likely include Tom Cruise.

"There is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no Top Gun without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick," said Ellison.

The new story, with screenplay by Justin Marks (STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI) depicts the end of the fighter pilot era as DRONES become the new norm.

"It is I don't think what people are going to expect, and we are very, very hopeful that we get to make the movie very soon," said Ellison. "But like all things, it all comes down to the script, and Justin is writing as we speak. He has a phenomenal take to really update that world for what fighter pilots in the Navy has turned into today."

He added, "It is very much a world we live in today where it's drone technology and fifth generation fighters. It's really exploring the end of an era of dogfighting and fighter pilots and what that culture is today."

Keep checking BroadwayWorld as we update and answer all your questions regarding casting, shooting dates, and the all-important question: Will the sequel include another shirtless beach volleyball match?

Top Gun is a 1986 American action drama film directed by Tony Scott, and produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, in association with Paramount Pictures. The screenplay was written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr., and was inspired by the article "Top Guns" written by Ehud Yonay for California magazine.

The film stars Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, and Tom Skerritt. Cruise plays Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a young Naval aviator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. He and his Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Edwards) are given the chance to train at the Navy's Fighter Weapons School at Miramar in San Diego.

Cruise has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won three Golden Globe Awards. He started his career at age 19 in the 1981 film Endless Love. After portraying supporting roles in Taps (1981) and The Outsiders (1983), his first leading role was in the romantic comedy Risky Business, released in August 1983. Cruise became a full-fledged movie star after starring as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the action drama Top Gun (1986). Since 1996 he has been well known for his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible film series, which has a fifth film set for release in 2015.

One of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, Cruise starred in several more successful films in the 1980s, including the dramas The Color of Money (1986), Cocktail (1988), Rain Man (1988), and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). In the 1990s, he starred in a number of hit films, including the romance Far and Away (1992), the drama A Few Good Men (1992), the legal thriller The Firm (1993), the romantic horror film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), the romantic comedy-drama sports film Jerry Maguire (1996), the erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut, directed by Stanley Kubrick, and the drama Magnolia (both 1999).

In the 2000s, Cruise starred in a number of successful films, including the science fiction thrillers Vanilla Sky (2001) and Minority Report (2002), the epic war film The Last Samurai (2003), the crime film Collateral (2004), in which he portrays a hitman, the science fiction disaster thriller film War of the Worlds (2005), the war drama Lions for Lambs (2007), the historical thriller Valkyrie (2008), the action comedy Knight and Day (2010), the thriller JACK REACHER (2012), the post-apocalyptic science fiction film Oblivion (2013), and the military science fiction film EDGE OF TOMORROW (2014). In 2012, Cruise was Hollywood's highest-paid actor. Fifteen of his films grossed over $100 million domestically; twenty-one have grossed in excess of $200 million worldwide.

Sources: US Magazine, TV Guide