At the request of co-screenwriter/producer Christopher McQuarrie, Wright tapped into his knack for selecting memorable needle drops, recommending Foghat’s “Slow Ride” for the first-act bar sequence.
“My dream text to get was Chris McQuarrie saying, ‘Hey, we need a new song for the bar scene in Top Gun: Maverick. What can you think of that’s like …?’ And it was like, ‘Oh, give me 45 minutes!’ I think I still have that playlist on Spotify; it was ‘Maverick Bar,’” Wright says.