Days of Thunder Sequel Greenlit With Cruise and Hathaway
The Story
A Days of Thunder sequel has been greenlit, with Tom Cruise back as Cole Trickle and Anne Hathaway cast as a NASCAR team owner and engineer, out in June 2028.
Cruise announced it on August 29, 2026 with a photograph of the pair beside a stockcar at Daytona International Speedway, the car carrying his old Cole Trickle namerail and a green and yellow scheme nodding to the Mello Yello paint of the 1990 film.
Paramount has dated the sequel for June 2, 2028, shot for IMAX and released in theaters in Dolby Cinema and 4DX, with Jonathan Levine directing from a script by Will Staples.
Cruise produces alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper, and the filmmakers have already been to a Cup race at EchoPark Speedway and met repeatedly with current drivers.
Denny Hamlin, the 2026 regular season champion, said any awareness the film brings the sport is worth having even when dramatized, and Chase Briscoe wondered aloud whether Cruise will be running the car himself at Daytona.
The original, directed by Tony Scott and scored by Hans Zimmer, grossed $157.9 million worldwide against a $60 million budget and drew an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound.
Cruise has run this play before with Top Gun: Maverick, the highest grossing film of his career at $1.5 billion, and arrives now in a market where racing pictures have started to make money again.
Cruise announced it on August 29, 2026 with a photograph of the pair beside a stockcar at Daytona International Speedway, the car carrying his old Cole Trickle namerail and a green and yellow scheme nodding to the Mello Yello paint of the 1990 film.
Paramount has dated the sequel for June 2, 2028, shot for IMAX and released in theaters in Dolby Cinema and 4DX, with Jonathan Levine directing from a script by Will Staples.
Cruise produces alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper, and the filmmakers have already been to a Cup race at EchoPark Speedway and met repeatedly with current drivers.
Denny Hamlin, the 2026 regular season champion, said any awareness the film brings the sport is worth having even when dramatized, and Chase Briscoe wondered aloud whether Cruise will be running the car himself at Daytona.
The original, directed by Tony Scott and scored by Hans Zimmer, grossed $157.9 million worldwide against a $60 million budget and drew an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound.
Cruise has run this play before with Top Gun: Maverick, the highest grossing film of his career at $1.5 billion, and arrives now in a market where racing pictures have started to make money again.
Why It Matters
Paramount is buying a proven formula, not a nostalgia trip. Variety broke the June 2, 2028 date and the IMAX capture, and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed it, noting Staples came to the script from writing video games. The genre earned the bet: F1 took $634.1 million in 2025 and Ford v Ferrari $225.5 million. NASCAR holds the weaker end. It lends its tracks, its drivers and its name to a dramatized version of itself, with no say in the result and a long wait to see it, with the announced release scheduled for June 2, 2028.
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Read the original reporting at USA TODAY.
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