Anne Hathaway Joins Tom Cruise in 'Days of Thunder' Sequel, Summer 2028
Anne Hathaway will star opposite Tom Cruise in Paramount's sequel to Days of Thunder, with the studio dating the film for summer 2028. Variety reported the casting exclusively on 29 August 2026; Deadline confirmed the news independently the same day.
Cruise released a promotional image on his social platforms over the weekend showing the pair leaning against a NASCAR race car in Daytona. The photo — two of Hollywood's most bankable stars on a stock-car track — is the first visual from a project that had been rumoured since earlier in the year.
Cruise returns as Cole Trickle, the hot-headed driver he first played in 1990. Hathaway takes a newly created role: a racecar team owner and engineer. Jonathan Levine, whose credits include Long Shot and 50/50, will direct from a script by Will Staples. Cruise is producing alongside Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original, and Tommy Harper.
The first Days of Thunder, directed by the late Tony Scott, opened in the summer of 1990. Cruise conceived the story himself, and Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer produced. The film grossed $82.6 million domestically — the United States and Canada — and $157.9 million worldwide, according to Deadline. Its cast included Nicole Kidman, whom Cruise would marry the following year; Robert Duvall; Randy Quaid; Cary Elwes; Caroline Williams; and Michael Rooker.
Paramount's choice of a summer 2028 corridor places the sequel in the heart of blockbuster season, when studios deploy their largest marketing budgets. For context, the original opened on 27 June 1990 against a thinner competitive field than anything a modern summer slate offers. A lot has changed in NASCAR's audience and in the theatrical landscape since Cole Trickle last took a checkered flag.
What makes this stand out is the pairing. Cruise, 64, has spent the past decade engineering ever-larger practical spectacles — Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Top Gun: Maverick — while Hathaway, 43, has moved fluidly between prestige work (The Idea of You) and studio-scale films (The Princess Diaries 2, Interstellar). Neither actor has worked with the other before. Levine's involvement signals a tone that may sit closer to character drama than pure adrenaline, though no one involved has described the film's style publicly.
For fans of the original, the sequel brings back not just a character but a producing partnership. Jerry Bruckheimer's name on a Days of Thunder film carries a direct line to the Simpson-Bruckheimer era that defined the 1990s blockbuster. Whether the new film can recapture that combustion is a question for 2028.
