Tag: maverick

Steven Spielberg gives Tom Cruise and ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ the highest compliment ahead of the Oscars

A reminder that we need to see Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise work together again.

You can count one of the greatest directors of all time as a fan of Top Gun: Maverick, the high-flying action drama starring Tom Cruise that dominated theaters last summer.

Steven Spielberg caught up with Cruise at this year’s Oscar nominees luncheon earlier this week. In an exchange between the former collaborators caught on camera — see below — Spielberg tells Cruise that he “saved Hollywood’s [butt]” with Maverick.

“And you might have saved theatrical distribution,” Spielberg tells Cruise. “Seriously, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ might have saved the entire theatrical industry.”

Maverick was just the second film released amid the pandemic to gross more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office, joining the exclusive company of Spider-Man: No Way Home. And in the domestic box office, Maverick is the fifth-highest grossing film of all-time, topping $718 million. It’s the only non-Marvel and non-Avatar film in the top five.

Unlike the third installment of the third Spider-Man series, Maverick has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, hence Cruise’s presence at the awards luncheon. In addition to starring in the film, Cruise is also credited as a producer.

Cruise and Spielberg’s films are both competing at this year’s Oscars. Both Maverick and Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans are nominated for Best Picture. The Fabelmans is up for six other awards – including Judd Hirsch for Best Supporting Actor – while Maverick is nominated for five others, including sound, editing, original song, visual effects, and adapted screenplay.

Despite great performances by Cruise, and co-stars Glen Powell and Miles Teller, Maverick didn’t land any nominations for acting. Cruise has never won an acting Oscar, but would be credited with a win as a producer should Maverick win Best Picture. Cruise was last nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2000’s Magnolia. Though, we all think he should’ve at least been nominated for pulling off this insane stunt in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.

Spielberg and Cruise haven’t worked together on a film since 2005’s War of the Worlds. Before that, they also teamed up for 2002’s Minority Report. Perhaps we’ll see them work on another film together if Cruise can take a break from death-defying stunts in Mission Impossible sequels.

How the stars of Top Gun: Maverick got their call signs

What’s in a name?

It’s Top Gun: Maverick Week here at For The Win, where we’ve taken to the skies for five days of content to celebrate the premiere of the sequel to 1986’s iconic ode to naval aviation. Strap in for a wild ride (no spoilers!).

If someone told you their favorite movie was an action flick about Pete Mitchell, Tom Kazansky and Nick Bradshaw, it might take you a minute to figure out what they’re talking about. Now imagine they said an action flick about Maverick, Iceman and Goose. Whole new story.

Behold, the power of the call sign.

Tom Cruise’s 1986 mega-hit Top Gun first introduced us to Maverick et al. and introduced (a lot of) us to the notion of a call sign and its place in military aviation. A call sign is essentially a nickname, but its origins stem all the way back to the early days of flying as pilots needed ways to both distinguish their aircraft and speak concisely over the radio.

Call signs are more common in jet or attack squadrons like those portrayed in Top Gun. Much like in the fleet, the actors in Maverick were assigned call signs rather than choosing their own. Each actor was given the opportunity to pitch a new name for their characters, but none of them ended up taking it.

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“All of our call signs were scripted,” said actor Jay Ellis, a.k.a. Payback. “But Joe Kosinski (the director) was like, ‘Hey, if you have pitches for call signs, let me know.'”

Ellis said they all fell in love with their given names. “I remember just going, ‘I love Payback! There’s nothing better. I’m coming for payback!'”

“We all earned them, too,” said Monica Barbaro, who plays Phoenix. “I remember [Ellis] convinced [co-star Lewis Pullman] to put his phone on the bar, and then he had to buy everyone in the bar a round of drinks. We were all like, ‘you better pay him back.'”

Miles Teller, the actor who portrays Rooster, was one of the few — if not the only one — that got to choose his own call sign. Playing Goose’s son meant the pressure was on to find the right one.

“Rooster did just kind of come to me,” Teller said. “I remember meeting with Joe Kosinski, our director, and [producer Jerry] Bruckheimer, and they went through thousands of call signs.”

Rooster was really the only bird-related call sign they considered.

Each cast member was partial to their own call sign, though that isn’t always the case in the fleet.

“You can get a call sign for almost anything, and usually it’s a work in progress,” said Marine Corps F/A-18 Weapon Systems Officer David “Uncle Rico” Hall. “Whether it’s because they did something stupid, or whether you just think of one that sounds funny because of their name, or just how they act.”

The surest way to make sure you’re not stuck with a bad call sign is to let your squadron know you hate it.

Hall is an expert in assigning call signs thanks to his time with VMFA(AW)-225 in Miramar, California and VMFA(AW)-242 Iwakuni, Japan. For him, the call sign is more than just a time-honored aviation tradition; it also serves to breakdown rank barriers in the cockpit.

“I could be flying with the general, and if he does something stupid, then I need to be able to say, ‘Hey, Smiley, you’re doing something stupid,'” Hall said. “It just kind of levels the playing field, and that’s super important — tactically and safety-wise — at least in aviation.”

You can see Maverick, Rooster, Payback and more in Top Gun: Maverick, which opens in theaters worldwide May 27.

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Taylor reacts to ‘Maverick’ nickname

Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott recently bestowed upon freshman quarterback/wide receiver Will Taylor a new nickname – Maverick, the nickname of Tom Cruise’s character, Pete Mitchell, in the 1986 movie Top Gun. Maverick was an F-14 Tomcat …

Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott recently bestowed upon freshman quarterback/wide receiver Will Taylor a new nickname – Maverick, the nickname of Tom Cruise’s character, Pete Mitchell, in the 1986 movie Top Gun.

Maverick was an F-14 Tomcat pilot for the United States Navy.

“He’s got that feistiness to him. That edge to him. I think he likes it too,” Elliott said. “That is what I didn’t know about him just because I was not heavy involved in the process. [Brandon] Streeter, [Tyler] Grisham and Jeff kind of handled that for the most part.

“But man, he provides a spark. And what I think he has done, too, is that he has garnered the respect of everyone in that locker room.”

Taylor met with the media on Tuesday and talked about the new nickname he earned from Elliott.

“He said, ‘I’m going to call you ‘Maverick,’’ Taylor said. “I looked at him and I was like, ‘Maverick?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, like Goose and Maverick from Top Gun.’ I was like, ‘OK, I like that.’ So, that started a couple weeks ago, and it’s been kind of catching on ever since. So, that’s what he’s been calling me.”

Taylor was asked if Elliott told him why he wanted to give him the nickname.

“I don’t know, he just kind of told me, ‘I’m going to call you ‘Maverick,’’ Taylor said. “So, I guess me and Maverick have some of the same qualities.”

Taylor said he has seen the movie and feels the nickname is fitting.

“I have. I like Top Gun,” he said. “Maverick seems like a very confident guy, so I like that.”

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