'Top Gun: Maverick' Release Delay Is Giving Director Joseph Kosinski Plenty Of Time To Finish The Film

The Top Gun: Maverick release delay isn't going to hurt the film's post-production process. Director Joesph Kosinski offered an update on the Tom Cruise sequel, stating that he's on the "home stretch of post-production" and that "despite all the restrictions on how you can work now" he's still "able to continue" doing work to finish the film in time for its new December release.

I know this was haunting you. I know you wake up every morning in a cold sweat, with the sheets torn off the bed, and yell into the void: "Will Joseph Kosinski finish Top Gun: Maverick?!" Worry no more, dear reader. Because Kosinski himself has shouted back from the darkness: "Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!" Actually, he had more to say than that.

While speaking with ComicBook.com, the filmmaker explained that while the release date has been delayed, his post-production work continues unabated:

"We are sticking to our schedule and finishing the movie just as if it were coming out on its original release date. Luckily, I'm in the home stretch of post-production where, despite all the restrictions on how you can work now, I'm able to continue doing my job and finish the movie. Which is pretty amazing. If I were in any other phase of the project, it would be hard to do that. But because I'm in the tail end of post, I'm able to do everything I need to, to finish it. So we're sticking to it and sticking to our schedule and finishing the movie and then just holding it for six months."

Kosinski also added that a delay was necessary because there's no chance in hell a movie like Maverick could go direct to digital:

"It's the right decision because this is a movie that people need to see on the big screen. And if there's no big screen, then you don't want to release this movie. We want this to be a shared experience on the biggest screen possible."

Top Gun: Maverick is said to be loaded with all sorts of IMAX-shot stunts featuring the cast of the film flying real planes, so Kosinski has a point: that'll play much better on the biggest screen possible.Top Gun: Maverick opens December 23.

After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: "Rooster," the son of Maverick's late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka "Goose".