Meet Iowan Joseph Kosinski, the director of 'Top Gun: Maverick'

Actor Tom Cruise tagged Iowan Joseph Kosinski to be his wingman in one of the biggest movies slated for the summer, "Top Gun: Maverick," which comes out in theaters Friday.

The new film is a sequel to "Top Gun," a 1986 hit that is often cited as the picture that cemented Cruise's movie star status. That movie follows Cruise's character at the U.S. Navy's elite fighter weapons school.

In "Maverick," Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Cruise) returns to the skies 30 years after "Top Gun" came out, this time training the Navy's top pilots for a mission to destroy a uranium plant.

Cruise is not the only actor to reprise his role from the original film. Val Kilmer returns as Iceman. The new movie also stars Miles Teller as Bradley Bradshaw, the son of Maverick's former wingman Goose.

Who is Joseph Kosinski?

Kosinski — who grew up in Marshalltown — was "handpicked" by Cruise to direct "Top Gun: Maverick," Deadline reported. The director first worked with the movie star on the 2013 film "Oblivion," based a 12-page story Kosinski first penned in 2005.

"He somehow got his hands on a preview of the illustrated novel I was doing," Kosinski said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "He called me up, we sat down, I took him through the story. I discussed the movie and described the type of movie I wanted to make... I think he was just fascinated by the story. It was like nothing he'd done."

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Before "Oblivion," Kosinski's most notable credit was 2011's "Tron: Legacy," the sequel to the 1982 Disney cult classic "Tron."

Coming off of "Oblivion," Kosinski directed "Only the Brave" starring Josh Brolin and Miles Teller in 2017. That film was based on the real-life story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, the firefighters who combated the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona in 2013.

In 2017, Kosinski was tapped to direct "Top Gun: Maverick" and a July 2019 release date was announced. That release eventually got delayed to 2020 due to production issues and was subsequently further delayed as the pandemic unfolded.

"Top Gun," is not Kosinski's only movie coming out this year. His sci-fi thriller "Spiderhead" starring Chris Hemsworth will be available to stream through Netflix on June 17.

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"I went straight into pre-production in Australia on 'Spiderhead' right after finishing 'Top Gun: Maverick,'" Kosinski said in Q&A with Deadline, "so it gave me plenty to do while Maverick was sitting on the shelf and the world was stuck in lockdown."

"Top Gun: Maverick" arrives in theaters on Friday. Review aggregate, Rotten Tomatoes, has rated the fi 93% fresh.

Isaac Hamlet covers arts, entertainment and culture at the Des Moines Register. Reach him at ihamlet@gannett.com or 319-600-2124, follow him on Twitter @IsaacHamlet.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: 'Top Gun: Maverick' director Joseph Kosinski from Marshalltown, Iowa