That Time 'Top Gun' Director Tony Scott Tried to Commandeer an Aircraft Carrier for a Scene

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Blockbuster moviemaking is a complicated business — and, as legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer reveals in a new chat timed to the 30th anniversary of Top Gun, also an expensive one.

In a wide-ranging article by Stephen Galloway for The Hollywood Reporter, Bruckheimer explains how, when working on Top Gun, his director Tony Scott (who passed away in 2012) became frustrated with the performance of one of his key military vehicles — namely, the aircraft carrier on which the production had gotten special permission to film. “The carrier was cruising in the wrong direction for Tony,” Bruckheimer remembers. “He wanted to have it back-lit and it was front-lit, and the sun was going down. So he went to the admiral on the ship and said, ‘You’ve got to turn the carrier.’ The admiral said, ‘No. It’s too expensive.’ It was about $15,000 just to do that, and Paramount wouldn’t approve it. So Tony wrote him a check, right there.”

Then, as Galloway writes: “The check bounced.”

The soft-spoken Bruckheimer, who helped define the ‘80s and ‘90s alongside his late producing partner Don Simpson with hits such as Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys, and The Rock remembers how the idea for Top Gun came about quickly:

“I saw the cover of California magazine and these jets that were inverted, and I said, ‘This is really cool.’ I was like, ‘God, what a great idea.’ I threw the magazine on Don’s desk. I said, ‘This is something we should do.’ He looks at it and speed-reads it and calls a woman who was working for us and says, ‘Get in here and get the rights to this.’ ”

As for nabbing Tom Cruise, Bruckheimer says it was director Scott who did the convincing:

“He [Cruise] came into the office and Tony showed him this [photography] book that Bruce Weber had done on Americana and these great-looking guys. We leafed through the book and Tony said, ‘This is what I want you to look like’ — all these guys in white T-shirts, all handsome. Tony was excited and Tom got excited. That’s when I set him up with the Blue Angels.”

That was all it took to sign the budding star, whose own adrenaline-junkie instincts made him a perfect fit for the role of ace pilot “Maverick”:

“He’d just gotten off Legend [directed by Tony’s brother, Ridley] and he still had a ponytail and long hair. He goes to San Diego on a motorcycle [to the Miramar Corps Air Station]. These guys look at him and say, ‘This hippie, we’re going to give him the ride of his life,’ not knowing what Tom is like, because he’s a thrill seeker. So they take him up and do 3Gs, flip him, turn him — and Tom, his eyes are rolling and he’s throwing up, but he’s loving it. He said, ‘This is the greatest thing ever!’ He lands and walks over to a phone booth — because there were no cell phones other than the ones in cars then — and he calls me and says, ‘I’m doing it. I’m in.’ ”

You can read all of Bruckheimer’s thoughts on Top Gun here.

And for more on Top Gun, check out Yahoo Movies’ own 30th anniversary celebration of the film, as well as our chat with co-star Rick Rossovich regarding the movie’s memorable volleyball scene.

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