While Top Gun 3 will benefit from the presence of Top Gun: Maverick’s breakout star Glen Powell, the sequel will also have a hard time giving all its heroes enough screen time. It took a long time for Top Gun: Maverick to bring Top Gun’s antihero Maverick back to the multiplex, with 36 years elapsing between the original movie and the sequel’s release. During that time, Top Gun: Maverick’s troubled production made a lot of tough decisions. One was casting Whiplash star Miles Teller as Rooster, Goose’s son and Maverick’s student, instead of Set It Up’s rising star Glen Powell.
Powell expressed disappointment at the time, but by the time Top Gun: Maverick’s ending rolled around, it was clear the creators made the right choice. Teller was perfect for the role of Rooster and Powell got a scene-stealing supporting part as his cocksure rival Hangman. Top Gun: Maverick’s success resulted in confirmation that Top Gun 3 will enter production sometime soon, but Powell’s Hangman causes an issue for the franchise going forward. Whatever Top Gun 3’s story ends up focusing on, the sequel is likely to have a hard time integrating all of its main characters.
Top Gun: Maverick’s Hangman Must Have A Bigger Role In Top Gun 3
Glen Powell’s Roles In Anyone But You And Twisters Made Him A Major Star
Richard Linklater’s upcoming Hit Man looks set to improve Powell’s A-list standing even further judging by its stellar early reviews, meaning Top Gun 3 can’t limit him to the antagonistic supporting role Hangman played in Top Gun: Maverick.
It will be hard for the Top Gun series to work out how to integrate Hangman into Top Gun 3 now that Glen Powell is an A-lister. Roles in Anyone But You and the upcoming blockbuster reboot Twisters proved that Powell’s charismatic role in Top Gun: Maverick wasn’t a fluke, making him an in-demand star. Richard Linklater’s upcoming Hit Man looks set to improve Powell’s A-list standing even further judging by its stellar early reviews, meaning Top Gun 3 can’t limit him to the antagonistic supporting role Hangman played in Top Gun: Maverick. This may be a problem for the franchise.
Although few Top Gun 3 character returns are set in stone at this early stage, viewers will expect Powell’s Hangman to play a bigger role in Top Gun: Maverick’s sequel. Throughout Top Gun: Maverick, Powell’s character played a part similar to Val Kilmer’s Iceman in the original movie, constantly baiting Rooster into fights and then smugly sitting back once he set off the loose cannon. Like Iceman, Hangman revealed his heroic side in the finale when he saved Rooster and Maverick from certain death at the end of a high speed chase. This makes his Top Gun 3 role pivotal.
Top Gun 3 Already Has 2 Main Characters
Both Tom Cruise’s Maverick And Miles Teller’s Rooster Will Be Its Focus
If Top Gun: Maverick hadn’t taken almost four decades to arrive, viewers would have expected more than a one-scene cameo from Iceman. Burying his beef with Hangman was central to Rooster’s redemption arc, so Powell’s character needs more screen time in Top Gun 3 to prove he and Rooster are more than just rivals. The problem is that both Rooster and Maverick are already Top Gun 3’s main characters and the sequel has limited screen time. Top Gun: Maverick’s box office success was partially owed to the movie’s high-octane action sequences, but Rooster and Maverick’s relationship grounded its story.
Maverick has been the center of the Top Gun franchise’s universe since the series began, so Top Gun 3 is guaranteed to spend most of its runtime focusing on his story. Cruise’s antihero is so central to the series that Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick got away with never even mentioning what country the villains were from, since viewers implicitly knew that the real conflict of the series was between Maverick and himself. However, Top Gun: Maverick made Rooster almost as important as Maverick, devoting a lot of screen time to his tragic backstory and his troubled relationship with flying.
Top Gun 3 Can’t Drop Rooster Or Hangman
Powell and Teller’s Characters Are Both Too Important
Now that Top Gun: Maverick killed off Iceman, Rooster is the most important remaining link between the original movie and Top Gun 3 other than Maverick himself. As such, Top Gun 3 can’t sideline Teller’s character to center Hangman and Maverick since Powell’s roguish pilot has no connection to the original movie. This is an issue since Top Gun 3 also can’t forget about Hangman as he proved the sequel’s most popular new character among the fan base. Teller’s character is too central to Maverick’s larger story of overcoming his guilt around Goose’s death, while Hangman is too promising.
Top Gun 3 can’t dismiss Rooster or Hangman, but this leaves the sequel with three lead characters. Fortunately, Maverick’s Top Gun: Maverick love story left him settled with Penny, which means the sequel won’t need to devote screen time to another romantic subplot unlike its two predecessors. This could free up some screen time for Hangman and Rooster to have meaningful character arcs of their own, although this also reveals another issue that the sequel must address. Namely, the franchise’s many supporting characters.
Top Gun: Maverick Set Up A Lot Of Characters
Top Gun 3’s Sequel Story Must Explore Phoenix, B.O.B, and Cyclone’s Stories Too
Monica Barbaro’s Phoenix deserves more screen time to flesh out her experience as a female fighter pilot, while Lewis Pullman’s mild-mannered B.O.B remains an enigma even after Top Gun: Maverick.
Although Hangman was the breakout star of the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick set up a whole host of promising supporting stories whose stories remain unexplored. Monica Barbaro’s Phoenix deserves more screen time to flesh out her experience as a female fighter pilot, while Lewis Pullman’s mild-mannered B.O.B remains an enigma even after Top Gun: Maverick. For Top Gun 3’s story to give all of these characters the screen time they deserve, the franchise would need to fundamentally alter its focus. The series would have to finally end the story of one exceptional, troubled pilot.
Powell’s Hangman Highlights Top Gun 3’s Biggest Problem
Tom Cruise’s Franchise Has To Move Past Maverick Eventually
Top Gun 3 would have plenty of screen time for Hangman and everyone else if it was a franchise about pilots, but it has always been about Maverick alone. Even Goose and Iceman only existed in relation to Cruise’s character, with their death, friendship, and rivalry all defined by how they impacted Maverick. There is nothing wrong with a franchise centering its hero alone, but Top Gun: Maverick’s Rooster and Hangman proved the series has the potential to flesh out the stories of other characters. Now, Top Gun 3 must either broaden its focus or risk wasting Top Gun: Maverick’s breakout character.