SAG Awards nominee profile: ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ would be 4th consecutive sequel to win for stunts

The first two recipients of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Film Stunt Ensemble – 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” and 2008’s “The Dark Knight” – were sequels directly derived from films released prior to the establishment of the category (2004’s “The Bourne Supremacy” and 2005’s “Batman Begins”). 14 years later, this short list could gain a third entrant if the long-awaited follow-up to 1986’s “Top Gun” – “Top Gun: Maverick” – prevails at the upcoming ceremony. After “Avengers: Endgame,” “Wonder Woman 1984,” and “No Time to Die,” it would be the fourth proper continuation film in a row to score a win here.

Picking up more than three decades after its predecessor left off, “Top Gun: Maverick” finds the ever-rebellious Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) fulfilling his new duty of teaching a younger generation of fighter pilots at the Navy school from which he graduated. As he leads them through a grueling training process with the goal of destroying a uranium enrichment plant, he is haunted by his past mistakes and is forced to grapple with his own mortality more intensely than ever before.

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SEE How to watch ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ online

Various “Top Gun: Maverick” stunt performers have each worked on at least one of eight films that have already achieved this honor, including “The Dark Knight,” “Star Trek,” “Inception,” “Lone Survivor,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Black Panther,” and “Wonder Woman 1984.” Also represented on some of their resumes are Best TV Stunt Ensemble winners “Heroes” and “The Mandalorian.”

Along with “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Top Gun: Maverick” is part of the current film stunt lineup’s sequel majority. The other two continuation films respectively derive from 2009’s “Avatar” and 2018’s “Black Panther,” the latter of which took this prize itself. Also in the running are the teams from “The Batman,” which is unrelated to but shares the same basic premise as “The Dark Knight” trilogy, and total standalone film “The Woman King.”

The films that have prevailed in this category most recently are “No Time to Die” (2022), “Wonder Woman 1984” (2021), “Avengers: Endgame” (2020), and “Black Panther” (2019).

This article is a part of Gold Derby’s “SAG Awards nominee profile” series spotlighting the 2023 contenders in film and TV.

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