In the immediate wake of the monster success of Top Gun: Maverick, people began imagining other Tom Cruise legacy sequels that could be made, and because nostalgia is a helluva drug, the NASCAR romantic drama Days of Thunder topped the list. Well, because we live in the worst timeline, it’s actually happening, a Days of Thunder sequel has been willed into existence. It’s due in June 2028, when Tom Cruise will be 66 years old.

Because we also live in a timeline with a f-cked sense of humor, Anne Hathaway has been cast alongside Cruise in the sequel.

I really hope she’s not playing the love interest (her character description “team owner and engineer”). I mean, she probably is, but I hope not, and not because of their 20-year age gap. No, it’s because Tom Cruise is not sexy, the characters he plays are not sexy, and I wish we could all stop pretending like sexiness is a factor in Tom Cruise Cinema. It isn’t. Tom Cruise characters are Forever Forty-Nine and sexless. Yet, Cruise seems compelled to shove a romantic subplot into every one of his films, in some sort of increasingly weird paean to masculinity. It’s never anyone’s favorite part of his movies, and yet, it keeps happening.

Days of Thunder is, of course, the film on which Cruise met Nicole Kidman back in the day. That is honestly the most notable thing about it. Quick quiz: What is Cruise’s character’s name in Days of Thunder? Do you know? I refuse to pretend nostalgia for Days of Thunder, a bad movie blatantly trying to drift on Top Gun’s formula. I cannot believe we’re going to waste time and money on a sequel for one of Cruise’s most forgettable films of the 1990s. I can’t believe we’re dragging Anne Hathaway into this mess.

And she’s already dealing with sh-t! Randy Quaid, who co-starred in Days of Thunder, emerged from his hidey hole to post on Xitter:

You know what she won’t be by 2027, when this unholy film will be made? Pregnant. She’s gonna give birth eventually, dude, and then she stops being pregnant. Never mind that nobody asked for opinions on whether or not pregnant people are sexy, she won’t be pregnant forever. What a weird f-cking thing to say, but then, it’s Randy Quaid. He’s fully off the deep end at this point.

Anne Hathaway has two years of this sh-t ahead of her. She’s going to have to pretend to have cared about Days of Thunder at some point in her life before signing onto the sequel. An easy task for the cast of Maverick, because Top Gun is a seminal film in the American canon. But Days of Thunder? It’s nobody’s favorite Tom Cruise film. Besides the Nicole thing, I mostly remember it for the Mello Yello ad placement. Not even Mountain Dew. MELLO YELLO.

You know what? Valid. Days of Thunder is the Mello Yello to Top Gun’s Mountain Dew.

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Photo credits: CONNOR TERRY/EPA/Rob Latour/Shutterstock

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