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Joseph Kosinski has a dream: to bring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise back on the racetrack together — this time in a crossover sequel that merges Pitt’s new racing film F1 with Cruise’s cult-favorite Days of Thunder.
Speaking to GQ Magazine UK, the F1 director teased his ideal follow-up to the Pitt-led Formula One drama, floating the idea of bringing back Cruise’s Days of Thunder character, Cole Trickle, in a shared storyline with Pitt’s F1 racer Sonny Hayes. “Right now, it’d be Cole Trickle… we find out that he and Sonny Hayes have a past,” Kosinski said. “They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths… I heard about this epic go-kart battle on Interview With the Vampire that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?”
Kosinski’s vision has some history. Years ago, he nearly paired Cruise and Pitt for a Ford v Ferrari-style film in which both stars would’ve done their own racing stunts. But the project fell through due to budget concerns. James Mangold eventually helmed the version that hit theaters, starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon. “Yeah, I got close with that,” Kosinski recalled. “But yeah, you know, everything worked out for the best. I got to do F1. But anything’s possible.”
Cruise and Pitt last shared the screen in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire, but their off-screen friendship has endured. Pitt recently attended the F1 premiere in London, where he posed with Cruise. Speaking to E! News, Pitt expressed interest in working with Cruise again — with one caveat: “I’m not gonna hang my ass off airplanes and shit like that.”
Cruise, meanwhile, has been openly mulling a return to Days of Thunder, telling Today Show Australia that he’s “thinking and talking about what could we do and what’s possible.” News of a sequel development first broke in November 2024.
Kosinski, who directed Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, is also developing a third Top Gun film. “There’s one last ride,” he said, hinting at a massive, existential storyline for Maverick. “We’re thinking much bigger… it’s an existential question that would make Maverick feel small.”
If Kosinski has his way, racing fans could see Cruise and Pitt reignite their on-screen rivalry — not in vampires this time, but behind the wheel.
