Tom Cruise and his longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie are already deep in talks (and apparently some laughs) about a slew of upcoming projects, including sequels to ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, ‘Days of Thunder’, and even a possible return of Les Grossman, the outrageous Hollywood exec from ‘Tropic Thunder’.

According to Deadline, McQuarrie, who directed ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ and co-wrote ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, opened up about all this during a recent appearance on the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast with Josh Horowitz. And let’s just say, the man is ‘buzzing’ with ideas.

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First up: the highly anticipated sequel to ‘Top Gun: Maverick’. According to McQuarrie, the story is already locked in, and surprisingly, it came together with ease.

“It wasn’t hard,” he said casually, revealing that co-writer Ehren Kruger pitched an idea that immediately clicked. “We had one conversation about it, and the framework was there. So, no, it’s not hard to crack.”

But McQuarrie isn’t just thinking in terms of big-budget action. He emphasized that what truly makes these films soar is the emotion, not just the stunts, explosions, or high-speed dogfights.

 

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“It’s not the action… It’s the emotion,” he said, noting that the real challenge lies in making people ‘feel’ something. And while he hasn’t confirmed whether he’ll direct the next ‘Top Gun’ himself, McQuarrie admitted he’s been doing some homework on how to channel the late Tony Scott’s iconic visual style. “I’ve done a lot of research into how to make a Tony Scott movie,” he said with a grin.

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But wait — it gets weirder (and funnier). Remember Les Grossman, Cruise’s foul-mouthed, bald-headed, hip-thrusting Hollywood exec from ‘Tropic Thunder’?

Yeah, ‘that’ guy might be coming back.

McQuarrie and Tom Cruise have been playing around with the idea of a spinoff, and they’re not joking.

“We’re having very serious conversations about it,” McQuarrie confirmed. “The conversations we’ve had about Les Grossman are so f—ing funny. We’re talking about it, man. Everything’s on the table.”

While there’s no timeline yet, it sounds like the pair have been workshopping ideas in between filming scenes for ‘Mission: Impossible’. “We play with scenes, we brainstorm. It’s just figuring out who that character is at the core — and how to bring him back.”