Tom Cruise showed up as a surprise guest at the end of the Terminator: Dark Fate panel, which is a film from Paramount, the same distributor as Top Gun.  Cruise was there to introduce the trailer of Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the 1986 film Top Gun, which starred Tom Cruise as a young naval aviator who has the chance to train at a prestigious US Naval school. Cruise chose to introduce the trailer himself to the audience because he felt it was “[his] responsibility to deliver.” One significant aspect of introducing it at San Diego Comic-Con is because the original film was shot and takes place in San Diego, which Cruise refers to as “across the street.”

Check out the trailer below:

Top Gun: Maverick will be set 36 years after the original and Cruise will reprise his role as LT Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Miles Teller will also star as Bradley Bradshaw, son of Maverick’s late flight partner Nick “Goose” Bradshaw. Goose was played by Anthony Edwards in the original film. Val Kilmer will also reprise his role as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, who was Maverick’s rival in the first film. The film will also star Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris.

The original film grossed $356M worldwide on a $15M  budget and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.”

Maverick is directed by Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski and the screenplay was written by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, and Eric Warren Singer. The film is set to be released by Paramount on July 26, 2020.