'Top Gun: Maverick' Set for Fancy Premiere at Cannes Film Festival

We're less than three months out from the long-delayed release of "Top Gun: Maverick," a sequel more than three decades in the making. Before it arrives on American movie screens on May 27, 2022, the movie will premiere in France at the legendary Cannes Film Festival.

The festival runs from May 17-28, so the screening could take place anywhere from 10 days to one night before its commercial release, since you can’t have a premiere after a movie opens in theaters. As the anticipation builds, 10 days could seem like an eternity.

The original "Top Gun" was released on May 16, 1986. That makes the sequel release 36 years after the first movie. That's by far the largest gap between an original movie and its sequel in Hollywood history.

Know what was released 36 years before "Top Gun"? "Rio Grande," the classic western starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford, came out on Nov. 15, 1950. It's hard to comprehend all the changes in movies and the real world between those two movies.

Of course, we could cut "Top Gun: Maverick" some slack. That gap was supposed to be only 34 years before the COVID-19 pandemic knocked it off its planned June 24, 2020, release date. Paramount moved the release to Christmas 2020 and then July 2021 and then November 2021 as the pandemic dragged on.

That makes May 27 the movie's fifth legit release date. No movie has ever taken such a tortuous path to theaters.

"Top Gun: Maverick" will require its audience to embrace the willing suspension of disbelief, as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is still in the Navy over three decades later but has only risen to the rank of captain. He's got some issues to work out with Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, son of Goose and now an aspiring Top Gun aviator. Can a new generation of aviators meet the high standards created by Maverick and Iceman (Val Kilmer)?

For a movie that's been completed for well over two years, there have been zero leaks about what actually happens in it. Details will have to wait until we've all seen the movie in a couple of months.

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