Top Gun fans finally may be headed back to the danger zone, as Tom Cruise has confirmed the long-promised sequel to the 1986 hit is actually happening.

"It's true," he told the Australia morning TV show Sunrise. "I'm going to start filming it probably in the next year. I know. It’s happening. It is definitely happening."

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Cruise was in Australia promoting his latest film, Universal Pictures' The Mummy, the opening volley in the studios' "Dark Universe" films, which will include reboots of such Universal Monsters classics as The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein and The Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Directed by the late Tony Scott, Top Gun starred Cruise as cocky Naval aviator Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, who's given a chance to train at the Navy's elite Fighter Weapons School, where he clashes with classmates and instructors, and falls for Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood (Kelly McGillis). Although the film received mix reviews, it was a commercial hit, and helped to cement Cruise's status as a movie star.

Rumblings of a Top Gun sequel began in 2010, with the project gaining steam the following year, only to then be placed in doubt following Scott's 2012 death. However, while development moved back on track by 2014, until now there had been little word about Top Gun 2 since early 2016, when producer Jerry Bruckheimer announced he'd met with Cruise.