Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick is finally coming out near the end of this month after several delays, and the road to its final form was not easy, as Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots is saying now.
“I was working with the music placement person for the new Top Gun on writing a new song for them, and then I believe Tom Cruise came in and just fired everyone. You’ve seen that new Top Gun thing that he’s got? The trailer has been out for, like, three years, so there’s been a few overhauls, and I was a part of that, so, they moved on.”
The “Heathens” singer makes his claim in an interview with Los Angeles’ KROQ radio station Friday. Joseph said he saw some scenes but did not get any material written, and he alleges he ended up exiting the project soon after he was brought in to get a look at it and develop material with a similar feeling.
“It was actually pretty soon after they brought me in to show me parts of the movie and what they were looking for and stuff. Then I got word that there was like a wholesale swap.”
The change ultimately resulted in Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand.” The singer says she has been working on the song for years and it is intended to be a love letter to the world we have been living in lately, anchoring the film. Representatives for Cruise and Paramount have not responded to the claim from Joseph about his dismissal from the film as of this story being filed.