In recent years, Quentin Tarantino has made it a bit of a habit to not talk about new movies, at least if he’s not out to say something really nice about them, which is why Top Gun: Maverick landed on the tip of the famed director’s tongue so he could lavish praise on this year’s biggest film.
Top Gun: Maverick has continued to shatter record after record for Paramount Pictures since premiering over 2 months ago, with the studio showing no sign of wanting to bring it over to streaming just yet. However, Top Gun: Maverick's $1.326 billion worldwide box office haul has also been accompanied by stellar reception from critics and audiences alike, so much that even Tarantino has to chime in on it.
In his fourth episode on the ReelBlend Podcast, Tarantino and Pulp Fiction co-creator Roger Avary discussed their new Video Archives podcast where they set out to simply talk movies, with the former summing up his opinion of Tom Cruise's latest blockbuster as “I f*cking love Top Gun: Maverick. I thought it was fantastic. I saw it at the theaters,” while confessing his love for Tony Scott's 1986 film. Tarantino's excitement for Top Gun extends to Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, calling the two “a true cinematic spectacle, the kind that I’d almost thought that I wasn’t going to see anymore.”
One of the most puzzling things about Top Gun: Maverick for Tarantino was how they could make a sequel without the late Scott, a topic he discussed with Cruise himself who merely replied “I know, that’s why I said no all these years — for that exact reason. We figured out a way.” something Tarantino agrees with, saying the respect and love for the original is in every frame. Although Top Gun: Maverick might not make the new podcast, Tarantino had nothing but love for the work of Joseph Kosinski.
Tarantino wasn’t so optimistic about Top Gun: Maverick being the movie that fully revives movie theaters, calling “we’ll see” on that particular issue if movies continue to release for 40 days before calling it a day and that’s it. At least on that end, Paramount is doing right by Top Gun: Maverick, seeing as the studio’s top executives truly believe this movie was made to be experienced at a proper theater.
Tarantino's reminiscence of days when audiences had to wait 6 months for a film to be put on home media compared to quick streaming releases certainly marked a turning point for the industry (just ask South Park), and whether that will ever change again could certainly warrant its own podcast.
Top Gun: Maverick is now available on digital platorms.
Source: ReelBlend Podcast