Interview (Video): Christopher McQuarrie

Insights into McQuarrie’s role working on the Top Gun: Maverick screenplay in the last stage of pre-production, through production, and post.

The screenwriting credits for Top Gun: Maverick reads like a “who’s who” of notable contemporary Hollywood screenwriters:

Screenplay by Ehren Kruger (Arlington Road, The Ring) and Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle) and Christopher McQuarrie, story by Peter Craig (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, The Batman) and Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), based on characters created by Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. (The Secret of My Success, Turner and Hootch). In particular, McQuarrie stands out including these screenwriting credits: Jack Reacher, Edge of Tomorrow, Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible-Fallout, and The Usual Suspects for which he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Here is a brief but informative interview with McQuarrie who was brought on late in the project’s development through the end of pre-production, during production, as well as post-production.

Key quote: “The thing that has me most excited about this movie, the thing of which i am most proud is it truly is the kind of movie they don’t make anymore. It not just in its scope and its scale, but in its emotion, in its characters, in its storytelling. It’s it’s very much a modern film, but it’s also very much, steeped in classic storytelling.” [emphasis added]

Emotion. Characters. Storytelling. Those three words are worth printing on a note card and tacking up at one’s writer’s desk.

The movie has already grossed $435M in worldwide box office. That can’t all be attributable to the nostalgia factor. At least some of the movie’s success has to be about the story. Check out the current Rotten Tomatoes ratings:

Check out McQuarrie’s interview and his focus on embracing the characters to lead the story away from the original to become its own thing.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers, go here.