Jennifer Connelly believes Tom Cruise’s performance in Top Gun: Maverick should be enough to earn him an Oscar nomination. But will he get one?
Top gun: Maverick was the surprise hit of 2022. Delayed two years due to the Covid pandemic, Tom Cruise‘s return to the Top gun franchise was nothing short of spectacular in terms of reviews from critics and audiences alike, as well as its $1.4 billion box office revenue. Cruise’s co-star Jennifer Connelly has now called for Cruise to be recognized with a Best Actor nomination at this year’s Academy Awards for his “amazing” performance in the film.
With the Oscar nominations about to be revealed, some have touted Cruise as a potential dark horse nominee in the Best Actor category, a group that is expected to include Austin Butler for Elvis and Brendan Fraser The whale. While Top gun: Maverick is pure blockbuster usually ignored by the Academy when it comes to the top categories, Connelly hopes Cruise gets the recognition she thinks he deserves. She said Variety:
‘He’s extraordinary. He does a great job in the movie. He’s extraordinary as a person and fantastic as an actor, and I think he’s just perfect. He embodies that character so beautifully, and I think he totally deserves it. I think the movie is a really well-made movie, and it’s really hard to make a movie like that. Also think about Tom’s job and think about the things he did for that role. Besides all the ground stuff and how great he is in those scenes and creating those relationships… I think the relationship he has with the character of Miles is so beautiful and touching. But the work he did to achieve those flying ranges is something else.
Will Tom Cruise take to the air again for Top Gun 3?
That is a question no one has asked before Top gun: Maverick hit movie theaters in the summer. After spending two years in limbo waiting for a release date that would give the film the theatrical experience Paramount envisioned, the feeling that the film would not perform as well as expected began to creep in. that became clear during the opening weekend Top gun: Maverick was a legacy sequel that more than proved its raison d’être. By the time the film became the highest-grossing film of the year, surpassing Marvel films, Jurassic world and more, thoughts immediately turned to a third film.
While it may seem like a good idea at the moment, the future of the Top gun franchise rests on whether there’s any more story to tell and according to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, it all depends on Tom Cruise. He said earlier:
“He’s in the middle of shooting Mission Impossible, he’s got a lot of hard, hard stunts he’s doing… It’s not the time to take the focus away from what’s important to him right now. Is there another story that’s convincing enough that we have to go back? It seems to me at the end of this movie that Maverick still has some gas in the tank. He won’t settle down.”