When writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein shot Mayday, the world had just witnessed Top Gun: Maverick, the ultimate aviation film, one that put its actors in real jets and earned $1.3 billion globally.
While Mayday did not have the benefit of working directly with the U.S. Navy like Maverick did, it did have producer and Paramount-Skydance boss David Ellison as among its roster. Ellison, a pilot himself, was obsessive about the flying details, Daley and Goldstein tell The Hollywood Reporter in a conversation breaking down the trailer for the Cold War-era buddy action-comedy film, which Apple will release on streaming Sept. 4.
“He knew the world we were playing in very well,” says Goldstein. “We would get notes on very specific things that studio heads don’t normally weigh in on.” Among his key points was making sure the “hard deck” was accurate. “When you do these maneuvers, you have a pretend ground level so that the pilot doesn’t actually crash into the ground — and that’s usually set 5,000 feet above the real ground,” continues Goldstein. “David wanted to make sure we were always above the hard deck when we did these maneuvers.”
The trailer begins with Reynolds’ Troy “Assassin” Kelly crashing his plane behind enemy lines in Russia, being nursed back to health by an America-obsessed former KGB officer, Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh).
