He earned £75 million for Top Gun: Maverick, the 2022 sequel to the 1986 original – thanks to a deal that gave him a healthy cut of the movie's huge box office profits.

And now Tom Cruise is set to pocket Hollywood's biggest-ever pay-cheque for Top Gun 3.

The 63-year-old is expected to make about £100 million for his return as Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell – and he'll repeat his producer role in the blockbuster franchise.

It is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2028.

Cruise will earn a reported £18 million salary and about 8 per cent of the profits – should Top Gun 3 match the second film's £1.1billion earnings, he stands to rake in more than £75 million.

Top Gun 3 was confirmed by Paramount film co-head Josh Greenstein at Las Vegas CinemaCon last week. 

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Cruise and Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger are already working on the script.

A senior figure at Paramount said last night: 'Top Gun: Maverick was the biggest movie of Tom's career and the film which brought audiences back [to cinemas] after Covid. 

'There is no Top Gun without Tom, so the initial salary is a given.

'The profit share is generous, because David Ellison, who now owns Paramount, produced Maverick via his company Skydance, and believes Tom is worth every cent. 

'He is confident this film will earn over a billion dollars.'

The second Top Gun film was directed by Joseph Kosinski and also starred Miles Teller and Glen Powell as young pilots being mentored by Cruise's character.

Ellison has cited Top Gun 3 as a top priority for Paramount and said that he would be in the 'Cruise business' as long as the A-list star – with whom he has made ten films – wanted to tell stories with him.