Top Gun Coming Back To Theaters For 35th Anniversary

Top Gun solidified Tom Cruise's career as a leading man and for a very limited time, you can catch it on the big screen once again. Celebrating its 35th anniversary, the remastered classic will air exclusively in Dolby Cinema AMC theaters, hitting over 150 screens across the country on May 13 in Dolby Vision in what's being called Top Gun Day.

The original Top Gun first premiered on May 16, 1986. This re-release could give the iconic '80s film quite the boost in its original box office numbers, a colossal $356 million worldwide, which was absolutely massive for the time. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $860 million in today's dollars.

Top Gun getting a theatrical re-release is prime material to hype audiences for the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. The potential blockbuster has been pushed back more than once due to the COVID-19 pandemic (as well as the new Mission: Impossible movie, another Tom Cruise vehicle). Joining Cruise in the sequel is former co-star, Val Kilmer, in addition to an all-star cast including Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, and Ed Harris.

The journey to finally get Maverick into theaters has been a long one. Rumors of a potential sequel first started swirling in 2015, and the following year, producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that he and Cruise had discussed a new Top Gun movie. In May 2018, Cruise announced that Top Gun: Maverick had started production with a tweet showing his character of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell looking out across a runway at his F-14A Tomcat.

Top Gun Maverick lands in theaters on November 19, 2021.