UPDATE 2: A 1990 property getting a 2028 sequel is the whole strategy, per our source: every property from 1970-2000 is getting a second look, and “nostalgia is the new woke.”
Tom Cruise is getting back behind the wheel.
Cruise and Anne Hathaway announced Days of Thunder 2 on Saturday in a video shot at Daytona International Speedway, with Paramount setting the sequel to open in theaters on June 2, 2028.
“Days of Thunder. Summer 2028,” Cruise captioned the announcement.
The image shows the pair posed against a beat-up green stock car with “Cole Trickle” painted above the door and the film’s logo and release window splashed across the side.
The video opens on Cruise alone at the track before he mentions “Annie” and the camera pulls back to reveal Hathaway standing beside him.
The two joke that filming gets going once Hathaway has her baby, with Cruise promising the production won’t be late. Hathaway asks if he’s sure he wants to say something like that out loud.
He’s sure.
Worth noting: Cruise’s post and the car itself brand the movie simply as Days of Thunder — no “2” anywhere — so don’t be surprised if the sequel just keeps the original title.
Anne Hathaway plays a team owner and engineer
Cruise returns as Cole Trickle, the hotshot NASCAR driver from the 1990 original.
Paramount describes Hathaway’s character as a race team owner and engineer. Plot details are locked in the garage beyond that.
Jonathan Levine (Long Shot, Warm Bodies) directs from a script by Will Staples.
Jerry Bruckheimer produces alongside Cruise and Tommy Harper. Bruckheimer produced the original with the late Don Simpson, so the sequel keeps it in the family.
Per Deadline, the movie is being made for IMAX and will also play Dolby Cinema, 4DX, and premium large formats — and IMAX itself wasted no time reposting Cruise’s announcement.
38 years later, Cruise runs the Maverick playbook
The original Days of Thunder hit theaters in the summer of 1990, directed by Tony Scott and written by Robert Towne from a story Cruise came up with himself.
Cole Trickle was the hot-headed rookie who teams with Robert Duvall’s veteran crew chief Harry Hogge to take on NASCAR, with Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes, Michael Rooker, and Nicole Kidman — who famously met Cruise on the movie and later married him — rounding out the cast.
The film pulled in $157.9 million worldwide.
Talk of a sequel first surfaced back in November 2024, Cruise confirmed in May 2025 that he was actively working on it, and Levine came aboard to direct in July.
Now the project has a date, a co-star, and pole position as Cruise’s next movie.
The math here is simple: Top Gun: Maverick arrived 36 years after the original, rode that wave to $1.5 billion worldwide, and finished as the biggest movie of 2022.
Days of Thunder 2 lands 38 years after Tony Scott’s original with Cruise back, Bruckheimer back, and a prime summer date.
Paramount is running the Maverick playbook again, and it’s hard to blame them.
Hathaway, meanwhile, is coming off one of the biggest years of her career, with The Devil Wears Prada 2, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and The End of Oak Street all landing in 2026, plus the Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity arriving this October.
With the baby coming first, expect cameras to roll on Days of Thunder 2 sometime in 2027.
The sequel also becomes the biggest movie yet on the Ellison-era Paramount slate, announced while the studio works to close its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Days of Thunder 2 races into theaters June 2, 2028.
