Ahead of the NASCAR regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway last weekend, action movie star Tom Cruise confirmed that Days of Thunder, the story of fictional NASCAR driver Cole Trickle, will be back for a sequel in June of 2028. The original film released in 1990, and remains ever-popular among NASCAR fans.
Speaking on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ in a new interview this week, Cruise confirmed that his character [Cole Trickle] will be racing again in the sequel, saying with a smile: “If I’m making a movie about airplanes, I’m flying — (or in this case) I’m driving.”
In the 20-minute conversation with McAfee, Cruise said that he has been contemplating this sequel for a long time.
“I’ve been thinking about Cole Trickle for a long time,” said Cruise. “I love this sport. I grew up taking cars on the back streets before I had my license and racing down country roads … I love NASCAR, and racing, and airplanes, and motorcycles.”
Cruise is known for pushing the envelope with stunts and action scenes in his new movie, and Cruise’s goal it to show the audience something new.
“After the first one, I was thinking about how can I do it, how can I seat the audience into another journey with this character,” noted Cruise.
He continued, speaking on his love for the sport of NASCAR and how they plan to do something that hasn’t been done before: “We’re going for and I feel like we really got something. Annie (Anne Hathaway) is enormously talented. She’s going to be an owner/engineer — I found a way in. There’s technically a lot of things — when you’re doing stuff, even with the aviation, how do we tell those stories? I spent years training, studying aerial photography, creating aerial photography.
“We’re creating stories like what can I tell with the motion. Those are the things I’m looking at with NASCAR, with these cars. I love the culture. It’s a real immersive, cultural story that’s going to have racing and it’s like, how do we do it? We’re going to be creating knowledge as we go along.”
Sequels don’t often live up to the hype of the original, but Cruise has often been the exception. Mission Impossible has only gotten bigger through the years with every sequel, and Top Gun 2 dominated the box office.
Tom Cruise recognizes empty chair in tribute to Kyle Busch
Tom Cruise recognizes empty chair in tribute to Kyle Busch
In the original Days of Thunder, Robert Duvall played the role of crew chief and mentor to Cole Trickle, but the legendary actor sadly passed way earlier this year. Top Gun dealt with a similar situation as Val Kilmer made his last on-screen appearance in the sequel before his passing.
“I think you’ll see how we treat it in this movie, and the journey of this story. I don’t want to give too much away,” said Cruise. “The tone of NASCAR, the tone of these films — it has a joy, they’re interesting, they’re humorous. There’s characters in NASCAR and it’s a real community. Those artists (Val Kilmer and Robert Duvall) — I feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to work with them and see how they work, creating those scenes together and create the movies.”
Cruise addressed the NASCAR garage at Daytona, telling the drivers that he plans to treat the sport with ‘respect’ in creating Days of Thunder 2.
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Tom Cruise announces Days of Thunder sequel to release in 2028, co-starring Anne Hathaway
Tom Cruise addresses the NASCAR garage in Daytona driver’s meeting about Days of Thunder 2
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