Tom Cruise is shooting the “Days of Thunder” sequel next year for a June 2, 2028 release and will be reviving his Cole Trickle character. But what has he been up to for 38 years?
“I just been thinking about what, how can I do it? How can I seat the audience into another journey with this character?,” Cruise said during an interview on the Pat McAfee show.
“We’re going for it, and I feel like we really got something,” Cruise said. “I found a way in.”
Exactly what that is, he didn’t elaborate, but Anne Hathaway will be playing a team owner and engineer and Trickle will be on the track in some capacity.
“Oh, he’s driving,” Cruise said. “Here’s the thing, if I’m making a movie about airplanes, I’m flying.”
Cruise is 64, which is old for a NASCAR Cup Series driver, but not unprecedented. Morgan Shepherd holds the record at 72, but Harry Gant is the oldest race winner at 52. Brad Pitt, star of the highest-grossing auto racing movie of all-time, 2025’s “F1: The Movie,” is two years younger than Cruise.
However, Cruise, who is famous for doing his own stunts, said the movie is much more about action.
“It’s a real immersive cultural story,” he said. “The tone of NASCAR and the tone of these films, it has a joy, it has .. they’re interesting. They’re humorous. They’re characters in NASCAR.”
The comments echoed what Cruise said when he addressed the NASCAR drivers’ meeting before the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona.
“It’s a culture, and I think that I was very proud to be able to reflect that in the first “Days of Thunder,” and I’m honored to share it with the world, but I just wanted you all to know that’s basically what we’re gonna go for with this one. Give the audience that opportunity to understand what it is as a team, as a community, what it is for NASCAR. The speed, the excitement, and all of that danger and stuff. Of course, I love it.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. revealed during “The Dale Jr. Download” podcast that he spoke to someone from the production last year during the story development and met with Cruise at Daytona, where he discussed the important things he’d like to see in the film.
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