New Top Gun 2 Casting Has An Amazing Goose-Related Backstory

Glen Powell in Scream Queens

Over three decades have passed since Top Gun's release, and the son of Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, who was just a toddler in the 1986 movie, is well into adulthood and embarking on his own journey into the danger zone in Top Gun: Maverick. Nine months after it was originally rumored that Goose's son would play a role in Maverick, it was announced that Whiplash star Miles Teller had been cast as the character. One of the actors that Teller beat for the role was Scream Queens' Glen Powell, but now it's being reported that Powell is gearing up to join Maverick in a different capacity.

Glen Powell is currently in talks to board Top Gun: Maverick, and while no details about the character he would play were disclosed, we can presumably expect him to be one of the other pilots at the flight program. After Miles Teller's casting in the sequel was announced, Powell commented about losing the role of Goose's son on Twitter, though he joked that the experience wasn't enough for him to take down the Tom Cruise posters in his room. Despite Powell initially losing out on playing one of Maverick's lead roles, THR revealed that Cruise, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and executives at Paramount Pictures and Skydance Media were so impressed with the actor that they tried to find a different role for him. In fact, the Maverick bigwigs are so keen on having Powell involved that they're "beefing up the role for him."

It's anyone's guess who Glen Powell would play should he appear in Top Gun: Maverick, although there's already speculation that his character is the son of Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, who is being reprised by Val Kilmer. If that's the case, then perhaps Iceman Jr. and Goose Jr. might have a similar dynamic that Maverick and Iceman had back in the day: rivals who develop respect for one another later in the story. Aside from Scream Queens, Powell's credits include The Expendables 3, Everybody Wants Some!!, Hidden Figures and the recently-released Set It Up.

No official plot details for Top Gun: Maverick have been revealed yet, but reportedly the sequel will revolve around the end of the era of dogfighting and the rise of drones and other new technology become more prominent in aerial warfare. Along with the previously mentioned actors, Maverick has also eyed Jennifer Connelly to play the a single mother who runs the bar near the Navy base where the pilots are honing their craft.

Directed by Tron: Legacy's Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick flies into theaters July 12, 2019, so keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates. In the meantime, feel free to look through our 2018 release schedule to find out what movies will arrive later this year.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.