Paramount Pictures
Tom Cruise is set to return for a 'Days of Thunder' sequel
A sequel to Days of Thunder, Tom Cruise’s 1990 NASCAR sports action drama, is officially in the works. Cruise is on board to return as racer Cole Trickle.
Jonathan Levine, who has previously directed the flms 50/50, Warm Bodies, The Night Before, Snatched, and Longshot, is in talks to direct the Days of Thunder sequel. No other casting announcements have been made other than Tom Cruise reprising his role from the original.
Levine also directed the upcoming David Corenswet-starring Mr. Irrelevant: The John Tuggle Story, which reportedly got a rare perfect test score and will be released later this year on Christmas Day.
Tom Cruise set to reprise his role as racer Cole Trickle in a Days of Thunder sequel
According to The Hollywood Reporter, longtime Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who also produced the original, will return for the sequel, too.
“Paramount’s tapping of Levine, whose deal is in the midst of negotiations, is a strong vote of confidence in Mr. Irrelevant, its upcoming sports drama that Levine helmed… hitting stratospheric highs during test screenings earlier this spring.”
“Details for the new story are being kept under the hood but the script is written by Will Staples, who has written video games such as Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare, and co-wrote the Michael B. Jordan action movie Without Remorse.”
Ric Roman Waugh — director of films such as Shot Caller, Angel Has Fallen, and Greenland — worked as a stuntman on Days of Thunder and recalled what it was like working with Cruise on that film, before he became synonymous with performing dangerous stunts, in an interview with BroBible earlier this year.
“I was driving for the Cary Elwes character, and Tom would drive a lot of the time too,” Waugh recalled.
“I remember [director] Tony Scott watching us. We’d go out onto the racetrack, and when we were on the other side — and people forget, if you’re going 200 miles an hour, that side of the track is a mile away — I’d start bumping Tom’s car from behind. He’d be laughing and we’d have fun down the back straight, then we’d come around and do the scene,” he explained.
“And somebody must’ve told on us, because when we came into the pits, Tony came over and goes, ‘Are you hitting his car on the other side there?’ I go, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And Tom went like this, like, ‘I’m not saying anything either.’”
Speaking to GQ last year, F1 and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski said he’d want to see Cruise’s Cole Trickle crossover with Brad Pitt’s F1 character Sonny Hayes.
“Well, right now, it’d be Cole Trickle, who was [Cruise’s] Days of Thunder character, we find out that he and [Brad Pitt’s] Sonny Hayes have a past,” Kosinski said.
“They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths… I heard about this epic go-kart battle on Interview With a Vampire that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?”
In addition to Cruise, Days of Thunder also starred Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Michael Rooker, Nicole Kidman and Cary Elwes. The film was directed by Tony Scott, brother of Ridley Scott and director of films such as Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Unstoppable.