Top Gun 2: This original character WON’T be back for Maverick – amid ‘feud with producer’

Top Gun: Maverick is due in cinemas in 2020, the follow-up to the 1986 cult classic starring Tom Cruise.

But Michael Ironside, who played Lieutenant Commander Rick “Jester” Heatherly, won’t reprise his role.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he implied that it could have something to do with the fact that he doesn’t have a good relationship with top boss Jerry Bruckheimer.

“I’m not going to be in this film,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

“The one person still in charge is Jerry Bruckheimer and Mr Bruckheimer and I don’t really get along, or didn’t get along.

“He offered me a project 10 or 12 years ago and… I said no to it.

“The next time I saw him at a hockey game… I went up and said, ‘Hey Jerry’ and he just turned around and I figured, ‘Well that relationship is over with’.

“But he has a business he has to run, he has to make decisions based on his way of doing things and what makes him feel safe.”

Top Gun: Maverick will see Cruise returning as Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, more than three decades since the character was last seen.

Oblivion’s Joseph Kosinski is directing, with Val Kilmer reportedly signed up to reprise the role of Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky.

Entertainment Weekly reported in June that he has signed up to return, with production having started earlier this year.

“Stylistically it’s gonna be the same,” Cruise teased. “We’re gonna have the same score from Harold Faltermeyer.

“Aviators are back. The need for speed, we’re gonna have big machines.

“It’s gonna be a competition film like the first one, and it’s gonna be in the same vein, the same tone as the first one but a progression for Maverick.”

Also set to appear are Miles Teller as a pilot trainee, plus Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Monica Barbaro and Glen Powell.

Top Gun: Maverick is out on June 26, 2020.