Tom Cruise’s ‘Days of Thunder’ Sequel Set for June 2028 with Anne Hathaway Joining

Can Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures make lightning strike twice after they landed a mega hit with “Top Gun Maverick?” Well what comes before lightning? Thunder.

Cruise has officially confirmed his sequel to the 1990 NASCAR movie “Days of Thunder” at Paramount, now set for June 2, 2028, and the studio also announced that Anne Hathaway is joining the cast. The two shared a first-look announcement image in front of a NASCAR racer with Cruise’s character name, Cole Trickle. And like “Maverick,” the film will be shot for IMAX.

Jonathan Levine is directing the film from a script by Will Staples, and Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper are producing along with Cruise. Hathaway will portray a team owner and engineer.

“Days of Thunder” in 1990 reunited Cruise with the late Tony Scott after “Top Gun,” and while you could say the film is “Top Gun” on wheels, the movie has its own charms and thrills. Cruise plays a hot-shot stock car driver who gets the chance to compete in the world of NASCAR. The film stars Robert Duvall, Nicole Kidman, Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes, Michael Rooker, Fred Thompson, and John C. Reilly. Cruise even got a writing credit on the project alongside the iconic Robert Towne. It made $157.9 million at the box office and was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound.

Cruise in 2024 announced a partnership with Warner Bros. to make “original and franchise theatrical films” for the studio, and he’s got “Digger” coming out from Alejandro G. Iñárritu this fall, but it’s clear he was never done with Paramount (he narrated a sizzle reel for the studio at CinemaCon and climbed the Paramount water tower to boot) or his stunt man bona fides for that matter, so here we are.

We’ve also gotten a handful of periodic updates about a “Top Gun 3” over the last few years, but this one will be next and should be just as big of a nostalgia play and legacy-quel tentpole as “Maverick” was. “Maverick” though made $1.5 billion globally, so if “Days of Thunder” does even a fraction of that, it will be a smash.

Hathaway meanwhile has been extremely busy this year between “The Odyssey,” “The End of Oak Street,” “Mother Mary,” and the upcoming “Verity,” based on the Colleen Hoover book.