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The making of Top Gun: Maverick was no small task, and it involved working extremely closely with the United States Navy to pull off this authentic and extreme movie about fighter pilots. Joseph Kosinski, the director of the legacy sequel, has been extremely open about his “quest for authenticity” on this movie, as he told Deadline. Most recently he talked about how he was allowed to go places and see things within the Navy that many civilians could never see. However, because the Navy was letting the director behind the curtain if you will, they also weren’t messing around when it came to making sure confidential and sensitive information didn’t get out.
This all came up while Kosinski was talking to Deadline about his love for aviation. He explained that getting to collaborate with the Navy was super exciting, and while working on the film he got to travel to the Teddy Roosevelt aircraft carrier and learn all about the planes. The director also noted that he got do a lot of things that many civilians would never get to, saying:
So, I got to live that dream of being in the Navy for a couple years. I got to go to places that civilians don’t get to go to. I got to see things that no civilian would get to see. I had my camera confiscated at one point. Wiped clean.
However, while this was a dream come true for Kosinski, it was not a dream to take lightly. As he mentioned what he was seeing is not public information, which is what led to his camera being confiscated. He continued the story, explaining why he thought his camera was taken away:
I took some pictures and maybe captured something I wasn’t supposed to capture, and my camera was quickly returned to me without any photos on it.
It does make sense that this would happen. There are some things the military has to keep under wraps, and those things can’t be shown in one of the most popular movies of the year. However, all this research Kosinski did, and the access the Navy provided did lead to the creation of a movie that felt like they succeeded in their “quest for authenticity,” as the director put it. You can see this success clearly, as the movie became one of the best movies of 2022 and could be a contender for Best Picture.
On top of the confidential information Kosinski learned on this trip, he and Tom Cruise also went to great lengths to shoot the movie in real jets. The cast was put through crazy training that involved blindfolds and cages, and after flying one of the most intense sequences in the movie, the Navy pilot who flew it said he’d never do it again.
This commitment to craft, excellence and authenticity is arguably one of the big reasons Top Gun: Maverick was such a massive success, both critically and at the box office. Due to this, it seems likely the sequel will go down as one of the best action movies ever made, in my opinion.
Even though the 2023 movie schedule is in full swing, Top Gun: Maverick is still a massive part of the zeitgeist, in part because of all the work Kosinski and co. put into it. If you are interested in watching the long-awaited sequel you can do so with a Paramount+ subscription.