Top Gun 3 is currently in development, but details about it haven’t been revealed yet, and if it decides to focus on younger characters and leave Maverick (Tom Cruise), it already has its perfect replacement – and it isn’t Hangman (Glen Powell) or Rooster (Miles Teller). Among the many movies from the 1980s and 1990s that have seized the current trends of reboots and legacy sequels is Tony Scott’s Top Gun. The acclaimed action-drama starring Tom Cruise was a critical and commercial success, becoming one of the best movies of the decade, and it took it 36 years to get a sequel.

Titled Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel reunites viewers with Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who is assigned by friend and former rival Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer) to the Top Gun school at NAS North Island. There, Maverick has to train a new group of students, among them Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, the son of Mav’s late best friend, Goose. During this new experience, Maverick also reunites with former girlfriend Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), and through her, Top Gun 3 can have its best replacement for Mav.

Why Penny’s Daughter May Become A Fighter Pilot In Top Gun 3

Penny Now Has A Direct Connection To Top Gun

In Top Gun, Penny Benjamin is only mentioned when referring to Maverick’s past and how he got involved with an admiral’s daughter, who happens to be Penny. In Top Gun: Maverick, Penny owns a bar near the Top Gun detachment’s location and is a single mother to Amelia (Lyliana Wray). Amelia greets Mav when he walks into the bar, but he doesn’t recognize her until Penny shows up. Although Penny initially tells Maverick that they won’t go down the same path and should stay friends, they eventually get together, though not before Amelia warns him not to break her mother’s heart (again).

Amelia is the granddaughter of an admiral, and with Penny owning a bar near Top Gun, she’s inevitably attached to this world.

Although she’s still young, Amelia is now the best Maverick replacement for Top Gun 3 thanks to her strong connections to him and everything about Top Gun. Amelia is the granddaughter of an admiral, and with Penny owning a bar near Top Gun, she’s inevitably attached to this world. The ending of Top Gun: Maverick implies that Penny and Maverick officially became a couple, which gives both Penny and Amelia a clearer connection to the main story, and makes it easier to give Amelia a bigger role in future movies.

Penny’s Daughter Being Maverick’s True Replacement Would Be Great

Amelia Would Be Beneficial To Top Gun’s Future

Making Amelia the new main character in Top Gun 3 as Maverick’s replacement is also fitting with the movie’s main theme of fatherhood. Since Top Gun, Maverick has been defined by the loss of his father, Duke Mitchell, who was killed in action during the Vietnam War, and in Top Gun: Maverick, he tried to make up for Goose’s death by mentoring Rooster and looking after him. Keeping up with this, Top Gun 3 could see Maverick now as a father figure and mentor to Amelia, not just at home but during her training, as well.

Although both Top Gun movies have had female characters in lead roles, like Charlie Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), an instructor of Top Gun in the first movie, and others in minor roles like LT Natasha “Phoenix” Trace (Monica Barbaro) in Top Gun: Maverick, a female character as the lead would further help balance the scales. Having Amelia leading Top Gun 3 doesn’t mean Hangman and Rooster can’t return, but the focus would be on her as Maverick’s replacement.