“F1” director Joseph Kosinski spoke to GQ Magazine UK and said his dream for a sequel to his Brad Pitt-racing drama is to actually bring in Tom Cruise for a “Days of Thunder” crossover. Kosinski previously directed Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick,” which earned $1.4 billion at the box office, and the duo are currently developing a third “Top Gun” movie together.
“Well, right now, it’d be Cole Trickle, who was [Cruise’s] ‘Days of Thunder’ character, we find out that he and [Brad Pitt’s] Sonny Hayes have a past,” Kosinski said about his dream pitch. “They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths… I heard about this epic go-kart battle on ‘Interview with a Vampire’ that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?”
Kosinski originally planned to bring Pitt and Cruise together on the big screen in his own version of “Ford v Ferrari.” The actors were going to do all of their own racing in the movie, but the studio would not approve Kosinski’s desired budget. James Mangold ended up directing “Ford v Ferrari” with Christian Bale and Matt Damon instead.
“Yeah, I got close with that,” Kosinski told GQ UK. “But yeah, you know, everything worked out for the best. I got to do ‘F1.’ But anything’s possible.”
Pitt and Cruise haven’t starred together in a movie since 1994’s horror classic “Interview With the Vampire,” although they have remained friends. Pitt recently showed up at the “F1” London premiere and posed for photos with Pitt, who told E! News earlier this month that he’s interested in acting with Cruise again on one condition: “I’m not gonna hang my ass off airplanes and shit like that.”
Cruise said on Today Show Australia in May while promoting “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” that he’s “thinking and talking about what could we do and what’s possible” when it comes to a proper “Days of Thunder” sequel. News broke last November that Cruise was developing a follow-up to his 1990 NASCAR drama.
As for the “Top Gun: Maverick” sequel, Kosinski told GQ: “I think we’ve found a way to do it, not only in the scale of what we’re proposing, but the idea itself of the story we’re telling. We’re thinking much bigger than… It’s a really existential crisis that Maverick has in this, and it’s much bigger than himself. It’s an existential question that Maverick has to deal with, that would make Maverick feel small, I think, as a movie, compared to what we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, there’s still more story to tell for him,” he added. “There’s one last ride. So we’re working on it now… we’ll only do it if we feel like we’ve got a strong enough story.”
Kosinski’s “F1” opens in theaters June 17.
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