Sometimes a movie just refuses to land, and by that I mean it refuses to leave. Top Gun: Maverick is back on Netflix's charts again, right as word spreads that a third Top Gun has entered development, per MSN's coverage. People still love this movie. And the people making the next one seem to know it.

A quick rewind, because the 2022 run of Maverick is still one of my favorite box office stories ever. I've argued, along with plenty of others, that this was the movie that got audiences back into theaters in huge numbers, the one that proved the big-screen experience wasn't dead, just waiting for something worth leaving the house for. I keep coming back to the idea that people show up for the communal big-screen event, not the plot, and Maverick might be the purest example of that in my lifetime. A lot of people share that read.

The critics never turned on it either. Near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes scores, regular appearances on best-action-movies-ever lists, which is the kind of reception you basically never see with a legacy sequel. Usually those get graded on a curve by fans and shrugged at by critics. This one earned it across the board, and I think it comes down to the flying. Real jets, real G-forces, actors genuinely strapped into fighter planes trying not to pass out while a camera rolled. You can feel it in every frame. No amount of volume-stage wizardry quite gets you there.

So why is it charting on Netflix again now? Streaming is cyclical, and when a franchise starts making news, the older entries climb. With a third Top Gun reportedly moving forward, everyone who missed the second one the first time, or just wants to replay that dogfight over the desert canyon with the volume up, is finding their way back. The whole appeal of this franchise is planes doing real things in real air, and if the next one understands that, half the job is already done.

What we don't have yet is specifics. No release date, no confirmed returning cast, no word on whether Miles Teller's Rooster or Glen Powell's Hangman slide back into the cockpit. Powell's star has only gone up since 2022, so the scheduling math gets trickier every year. But the core promise holds: real planes, real pilots doing real flying, and the sense that an action sequence means more when you can see the faces of the people inside it.

If you're one of the apparently many people rewatching Maverick on Netflix this week, can I recommend the beach football scene as a palate cleanser between whatever heavier stuff is on your queue? It's a few minutes of golden-hour nonsense and I would watch it as a standalone short film.

Anyway. The need for speed remains undefeated, and I'll be watching the Top Gun 3 developments like a radar scope.