Their onscreen reunion proved to be the emotional highlight of Top Gun: Maverick, but another movie almost reunited Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer first. Top Gun became a cultural event upon release in 1986, thanks to its visuals, soundtrack and quotable dialogue. It helped it was fronted by a great cast too, with the film nudging Cruise over the line into movie stardom. The film was helmed by the late, great Tony Scott, whose signature flair for visual storytelling was in full force. Oddly, two candidates who were in contention for the director’s chair first were horror icons David Cronenberg and John Carpenter.
Top Gun went on to become a classic, but despite its success, it didn’t receive a sequel. In the decades that followed, talk of a Top Gun 2 – which is currently facing a lawsuit – would crop up occasionally, but it never came together. Scott’s passing in 2012 appeared to rule out a follow-up, but in 2017, Cruise confirmed Top Gun: Maverick was finally happening.
While fans of the original were excited, there was also fear over how it could possibly live up to expectations, especially for a film so deeply rooted in the ’80s. Those fears were dashed by the final product, which somehow managed to stay true to Top Gun while expanding on its themes and adding great new characters of its own.
Not only has Top Gun: Maverick received near-universal praise, it also became Cruise’s first movie to pass $1 billion worldwide. One of the most emotional sequences of Maverick sees Cruise’s title character meeting with Val Kilmer’s Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. The two were bitter rivals turned friends in the original, which propelled both Cruise and Kilmer to fame.
A battle with throat cancer in the late 2010s resulted in Kilmer’s voice being reduced to a rasp, with Top Gun: Maverick revealing that “Iceman” also battled the same disease. The actor only appears in one scene in the sequel but it carries a lot of thematical weight and emotion. Maverick also marked the first time Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer have appeared together onscreen since Top Gun, though they nearly reunited for 2004’s Collateral.
This Michael Mann thriller cast Cruise as a hitman named Vincent who kidnaps Jamie Foxx’s taxi driver Max, and forces him to drive around L.A. while he performs various assassinations. The movie itself went through several potential castings, with Russell Crowe and Adam Sandler once in line for Vincent and Max respectively. Val Kilmer – who should have been nominated for Tombstone – was also set to play undercover detective Fanning, who ends up on the trail of Vincent and sets out to rescue Max.
It’s a key supporting role, though Kilmer’s commitment to Oliver Stone’s Alexander saw him depart Collateral shortly before filming; he was replaced by Mark Ruffalo. While it might have been fun to see Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer reunited, Collateral would have lacked the emotion of their Maverick scene. Outside of an elevator scene in Collateral where Fanning doesn’t realize who Vincent is, their only other moment together would have been when Vincent kills the detective as he tries to get Max to safety. Viewers had a long wait for Cruise and Kilmer to reunite, but Top Gun: Maverick was definitely worth it.