Tom Cruise and Anne Hathaway Rev Up a New ‘Days of Thunder’ for 2028

Tom Cruise is returning to the driver’s seat for a new Days of Thunder film, with Anne Hathaway joining him as a racing-team owner and engineer. The follow-up is scheduled for June 2, 2028, nearly 38 years after the original movie introduced Cruise as NASCAR driver Cole Trickle and turned stock-car racing into a glossy Hollywood drama.

Cruise and Hathaway announced the project from Daytona International Speedway, appearing beside a green-and-yellow car that carried the Days of Thunder name and a summer 2028 message. The setting gave the reveal more weight than a routine studio announcement: Daytona is central to NASCAR culture, and Cruise presented the film directly to drivers and figures from the racing community.

At a drivers’ meeting before the Cup Series regular-season finale, Cruise said the follow-up would focus not only on racing but also on the community surrounding it. That emphasis matters because the first film’s lasting appeal was never limited to speed. Its mechanics, crew chiefs, rivalries and team loyalties helped create a world that racing fans could recognize even when the drama leaned into Hollywood spectacle.

Hathaway’s character is described as a team owner and engineer, a role that places her inside the decision-making structure of the sport rather than at the edge of the story. Further plot details remain under wraps, including how her character will cross paths with Cole Trickle. The casting nonetheless gives the film a co-lead with clear authority in the racing operation.

Jonathan Levine is set to direct from a screenplay by Will Staples. Cruise will produce alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper. The reunion with Bruckheimer is especially notable after Top Gun: Maverick showed that a decades-later continuation can become a major event when it respects the original while giving audiences a complete new story.

The sequel is planned for an exclusive theatrical release and will be shot for IMAX, with premium formats including Dolby Cinema and 4DX also expected. That format strategy makes sense for a project built around engines, speed and physical movement. The challenge will be making those technical advantages serve the drama instead of allowing scale to become the entire attraction.

The original Days of Thunder was directed by Tony Scott and released in 1990. Cruise played the talented but impulsive Trickle, with Robert Duvall as crew chief Harry Hogge and Nicole Kidman as Dr. Claire Lewicki. The film was not received as warmly as some of Cruise’s other major releases at the time, but it developed a durable following within racing culture and among fans of practical action filmmaking.

Cruise’s return raises an obvious story question: what does Cole Trickle represent after almost four decades? A simple repeat of the young driver’s rise would have little reason to exist. The more promising route is to examine how experience changes a competitor, how racing technology has evolved and how a veteran makes room for people whose authority does not depend on his legacy.

Hathaway enters the project during another highly visible stretch of her career, and the role gives her an opportunity to play someone whose expertise is central to the film’s action. A credible engineer and owner must do more than deliver exposition. The character needs to shape strategy, challenge decisions and carry responsibility when ambition collides with safety and money.

The production will also face scrutiny from NASCAR audiences who can quickly recognize whether a racing movie understands the sport. Access to tracks, teams and technical advisers can create authenticity, but detail alone is not enough. The film must explain the stakes clearly to newcomers without flattening the culture for viewers who already know what happens in a garage, on pit road and inside a close race.

No additional cast members or production start date have been officially announced. That leaves major questions about returning characters, new drivers and the scale of the story. Until those details arrive, the confirmed package is already substantial: Cruise and Hathaway together for the first time, Levine directing, Bruckheimer producing and Paramount positioning the film as a large-format summer release.

Days of Thunder now has the chance to become more than another familiar title revived for nostalgia. Its strongest path is to treat the years between films as part of the story, give Hathaway’s character genuine professional weight and show why racing remains compelling to the people who build their lives around it. The announcement has created attention; the finished film will have to earn the thunder.