Sure the film starred Tom Cruise arguably one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie stars and it would be the sequel to Top Gun one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. But the original Top Gun was in theaters when Ronald Reagan was president leg warmers were still in style and the New York Mets last won the World Series.
The challenge for Paramount the studio that released the film and its CEO Bob Bakish was how to roll out a sequel to the 1986 Cold War classic for a world that had seemingly left Pete Maverick Mitchell and his need for speed behind .And as if that was not enough the movie was scheduled to be released in the summer of 2020 when the world was in the midst of pandemic that was shutting down entire industries and throwing millions of people out of work and oh yes closing movie theaters around the world.
It was pretty clear that that was not a viable idea Bakish told CNN Business about releasing the film. The world was pretty shut down you were not going to put an expensive movie that you had real hopes for in theaters and have nobody come. What was Paramount to do? Maverick was ready to take off but had nowhere to land. The film with its hefty $170 million price tag could go straight to streaming like many movies did during the pandemic and as a marquee title would have likely pushed subscribers to the studios growing streaming service Paramount+. However the company chose to save it for the big screen.
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