The third Top Gun movie is a big priority for Skydance Media following the studio’s purchase of Paramount Global.

Paramount confirmed a third Top Gun soon after the 2022 release of Top Gun: Maverick to surprising success.

Fans were teased with hints about what it might bring, although exact details – such as its plot, cast, and release date – haven’t been revealed.

Then, all of Paramount’s projects were thrown into question when it was acquired by Skydance earlier this month for $US8 billion ($A12 billion).

On Wednesday (US time), Skydance CEO David Ellison stressed another Top Gun sequel and Star Trek remained front of mind.

“One of our biggest priorities is actually restoring Paramount as the No. 1 destination for the most talented artists and filmmakers in the world,” Ellison said.

“Very simply, great filmmakers make great movies.”

Ellison’s Skydance deputy Dana Goldberg also praised Tom Cruise, 63, for his work on Paramount projects such as Top Gun and the Mission: Impossible franchise.

“It was to thank him for, frankly, the huge piece he’s been in Paramount’s history, Paramount’s present and how important he is for Paramount’s future,” she said.

“Top Gun 3 is a massive priority for us.”

Top Gun: Maverick – the legacy sequel to 1986’s Top Gun – starred Cruise as naval captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell as he returned to the US Navy’s elite flight school to train a new generation of aviators, confronting his past while leading them on a dangerous mission.

Recently, director Joseph Kosinski teased the third Top Gun film would be “much bigger” than Maverick.

“I think we’ve found a way to do it, not only in the scale of what we’re proposing, but the idea itself of the story we’re telling,” the F1 filmmaker told GQ.

“We’re thinking much bigger than … It’s a really existential crisis that Maverick has in this, and it’s much bigger than himself.

“It actually … I’m trying to describe it without giving anything away. It’s an existential question that Maverick has to deal with, that would make Maverick feel small, I think, as a movie, compared to what we’re talking about.”

While details of the third Top Gun are scarce, Maverick director Joseph Kosinski is believed to be in the frame again.

Cruise is expected to return – and is said to be keen, despite not yet being officially added to the film’s cast. The return of other Maverick names, such as Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Miles Teller who were among the new recruits at the Top Gun Academy, remains a mystery.

The film has no official release date.

-with AAP