Following Top Gun, another iconic Tom Cruise action feature from the late 1980s and 90s is officially getting a sequel.
Mission: Impossible star Tom Cruise announced on social media that a sequel to Days of Thunder will open in North American theaters on June 2, 2028. Cruise will return to star alongside The Odyssey actress Anne Hathaway. Variety reported exclusively that Hathaway will portray a racing team owner and engineer, with Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies) set to direct the feature, which will be shot in IMAX format.
The original Days of Thunder premiered in 1990, directed by the late Tony Scott and written by Oscar-winning Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne. The film starred Tom Cruise, Oscar Best Actor winner Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies), Randy Quaid, Oscar Best Actress winner Nicole Kidman (The Hours), and Cary Elwes (BlackBerry). Tom Cruise plays race driver Cole Trickle, whose talent and ambition are surpassed only by his burning need to win. Discovered by businessman Tim Daland (Randy Quaid), Cole is teamed with legendary crew chief and car-builder Harry Hogge (Academy Award winner Robert Duvall) to race for the Winston Cup at the Daytona 500. After a fiery crash nearly ends Cole’s career, he turns to a beautiful doctor (Nicole Kidman) to regain his nerve and the true courage needed to race, to win, and to live.
Tom Cruise's long-running Mission: Impossible franchise released its final installment last year, marking an official farewell to the action saga after nearly three decades. His next feature, the comedy drama Digger, is scheduled for release this October and is directed by two-time Academy Award winner Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant). Over the past few years, Cruise had been developing space and deep-sea diving projects, though neither has moved into production. In addition to Days of Thunder, another Tony Scott-directed Cruise vehicle, Top Gun, received a legacy sequel in 2022 with Top Gun: Maverick. Grossing $1.5 billion globally, it became the second-highest-grossing film of that year, Cruise's highest-grossing release to date, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, with a third installment currently in development.
Oscar winner Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) has previously anchored billion-dollar blockbusters including Alice in Wonderland and The Dark Knight Rises. This year marks the most prolific of her career, with four starring features—Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, and The End of Oak Street—hitting theaters over the past few months, while her next project, Verity, is set to open in October. Among these, The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Odyssey have grossed nearly $700 million and $1.6 billion to date, ranking second and sixth at the global box office this year.
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Photo: Tom Cruise
Source: Variety