Here’s When You Can Watch Top Gun: Maverick At Home
Top Gun 2 will be in your living room soon!
It’s been almost three months since Top Gun: Maverick hit theaters, without the hit sequel being made available on Paramount+ or in any kind of home release. There was a time that feels like not that long ago when three months between theatrical and home releases wouldn’t be a particularly long wait–especially for a flick that’s still in some theaters–but times have changed. Impatient fans can breath easy, as we finally know when Top Gun: Maverick will be (legally) viewable in your home.
As reported by Variety, those who prefer their movies to be owned in digital formats will be able to purchase Top Gun: Maverick from online stores starting next Wednesday, August 23. For those who still put their faith in physical media, the wait will be a bit longer. For the 4K Ultra HD, DVD and Blu-ray copies of the sequel, fans will be able to get their hands on them Tuesday, November 1. There’s no word when the flick will show up Paramount+, but it’s a good bet that subscribers will be able to stream it either the same day as the digital sale release, or soon after.
The digital release will come with close to two hours of special features, which will include a “master class” with Tom Cruise recorded at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and a wealth of behind the scenes features about how the aerial combat sequences were filmed. Variety also says there’s an “extended version” of Top Gun: Maverick that features a scene with Tom Cruise and James Corden. Though we suspect they’re talking about a skit the pair filmed for The Late Late Show with James Corden in which the host became a Top Gun pilot with the unenviable call sign “Honey Butter.” You can watch that scene below.
As far as why it’s taken longer for Top Gun: Maverick to get a home release, we could find a possible answer in a story about another Tom Cruise franchise. According to a report from THR in March, Cruise and Paramount have been locking horns through their lawyers over the releases of the final two installments of the Mission: Impossible franchise, and a lot of it has to do with the question of how long the films will remain in theaters before streaming on Paramount+. The studio reportedly wants both films to stream on their platform 45 days after their respective theatrical releases, while Cruise is insisting on giving each film three months before streaming. Likewise, Cruise has reportedly been unfriendly to any kind of asks from Paramount for anything involving streaming; including giving his thumbs down to a Mission: Impossible series, as well as vetoing a streaming series based on his 1990 sports drama Days of Thunder.
Considering the alleged conflict over Mission: Impossible, it could be that the longer wait for the Top Gun: Maverick home release is the result of a negotiation victory on Tom Cruise‘s part. The sequel made its wide release on May 27, and August 23 marks just a hair under three months after that premiere. If that’s a sign of things to come, then expect a similar wait for the home release of next year’s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One.
