(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
ISLAMABAD – Upcoming action drama film ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, which is directed by Joseph Kosinski and will see the likes of Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer reprising their roles from ‘Top Gun’, is actually the poor man’s ‘Parwaz Hai Junoon’, according to global superstar Hamza Ali Abbasi.
In an exclusively interview with The Dependent, Hamza Ali Abbasi revealed that ‘Parwaz Hai Junoon’ was such a game-changer for the genre that even the definitive aerial combat film had to take note.
“Parwaz Hai Junoon intimidated Top Gun to a point that the makers had to come out with a new one 34 years after the original,” said Abbasi.
“And it’s obvious that the decision has been driven by Tom Cruise who is clearly, on a personal level, intimidated by Hamza,” the PHJ actor continued.
“I mean Hamza Ali Haider, the JF-17 pilot in Parwaz Hai Junoon, played by me – not Hamza Ali Abbasi. Although of course the latter is true as well, but being the modest, pious, ethical and principled gentleman that I am, I won’t say it with my own mouth,” Abbasi maintained.
Hamza Ali Abbasi urged the Top Gun franchise to own its own brand and not look towards copying other, more illustrious, names.
“First of all, I do realise that you’ll have budget issues that we never had. But you need to know that despite the planes involved, yours is a Navy movie. Be yourself and be comfortable in what you do. Don’t be intimidated by cooler, more successful films to a point that you forget who you are and lose your own identity in trying to copy them,” Abbasi said.
“Unfortunately, that’s why Top Gun-Maverick will turn out to be the poor man’s Parwaz Hai Junoon,” he added.