The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out 20 years ago this year. It was a monstrous box office phenomenon making over $1.1B on a $94m production budgets and sweeping over 11 Oscar wins in various categories.
It’s also the first ever fantasy film and sequel to ever win Best Picture at the Oscars.
This year, 20 years Oscar voters will determine if the Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick also a sequel, will take home the night’s and industry’s biggest prize: Best Picture.
The original “Top Gun” film came out in 1986.
Jerry Bruckheimer who is a major action movie producer is up for his first ever Oscar nomination with Maverick. Bruckheimer is behind many famous films and franchises such as Pirates of the Caribbean films and National Treasure to name a few!
Director Joseph Kosinski previously directed Tom Cruise in the 2013 sci-fi epic “Oblivion”. And worked with Miles Teller in 2017’s “Only the Brave”. Kosinski actually fought for Teller to get the job so much so as to who digitizing a mustache onto Teller’s headshot to show Cruise that Teller could play Rooster’s son in the sequel.
It worked, because the Whiplash and Only the Brave star got the role!
He and his fellow comrades or co-stars were put through intensive flight school training with a program developed and taught by Cruise himself and even a bit of military boot camp required to sit in the military jets.
The production rented those jets for an impressive $11,000 an hour off of the U.S. Military to film for the movie.
Maverick was the first major blockbuster that back brought audiences back to theaters and in droves generating over $1B dollars in box office revenues thanks to nostalgia and repeat viewings for repeat viewings of the big screen epic.
Steven Spielberg at the Oscar Nominees luncheon this year thanked Tom Cruise in a now surfaced video on the internet telling Cruise he saved “Hollywood’s As*”!
Will Hollywood pay back Cruise and the Maverick Filmmakers for their lift to the moving going business with wins for the night?
The film is also nominated in the Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar Categories.
Also nominated this year for Best Picture is yet another sequel Avatar 2: The Way of Water.
Will we have an Oscar sequel Best Picture Winner this year?
Will Maverick be only the second sequel ever in history of the Oscars to win Best Picture?! Find out this Sunday by watching the Oscar’s only on ABC TV Network.