Jeff Gordon Has Spoken to Tom Cruise About 'Days of Thunder' Sequel
02/17/2025 12:39 AM
By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
NASCAR may be heading back to the big screens, and Jeff Gordon wants it to happen.
In November of 2024, it was reported that actor Tom Cruise, who played the infamous character of Cole Trickle in 1990’s ‘Days of Thunder‘, was in talks of reprising his role in a sequel for Paramount Pictures.
Following Sunday’s Daytona 500, Gordon confirmed he has had conversations regarding the potential movie sequel.
“I've absolutely talked to Tom about it because I want him to do the project,” Gordon said. “And we want to be a part of it if it were to happen.”
Gordon and Cruise have had a friendship in the public eye for years, with the actor sitting stop Gordon’s pit box in the past as well as surprising Gordon during his retirement speech at the 2015 NASCAR Awards.
“He seems to like to tease it, so I don't know. We'll see what happens,” he said. “If that doesn't happen, I feel pretty confident there's a project out there that will get NASCAR back on the big screen, if not just a really cool docuseries or something beyond even what we're already seeing right now.”
Gordon does wonder how a ‘Days of Thunder’ sequel will be filmed, as technology and access has changed drastically in the last 35 years.
“Hendrick Motorsports being a part of that project, hard to imagine how you pull that off today because they actually had race cars with cameras in the race, and the cameras were big,” he said. “Cameras have gotten a lot smaller so maybe you could pull it off, but how do you do it and make it realistic and really authentic.”
Whether Cruise gets the project off the ground or not, Gordon has seen the tides changing in terms of NASCAR projects, including the ‘NASCAR Full Speed‘ docuseries that aired on Netflix in 2024. He believes there is a resurgence coming in the sport’s scope in the TV and film space.
“I am seeing just a lot more momentum in projects like coming through NASCAR and coming to Hendrick Motorsports and just more interest,” he said. “So that's good, right? It talks a lot about where the sport is at, where it's heading, the amazing crowd that was here all weekend, not just today, new TV partners.
“I do think that there's this kind of resurgence, which is awesome, and there's also a whole new landscape of opportunities with streaming services and docuseries and also the big screen, which I think it would be amazing to do.”
