The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 334

'TOP GUN'S' TONY SCOTT: SWEET ZOOM OF SUCCESS mm itlla ilSillsssSi mmvm lill lllllll 7 -J: By RODERICK MANN Tony Scott, the British director who admits he "couldn't get arrested" after his first movie "The Hunger" flopped three years ago, says, only half -jokingly: "The people who wouldn't return my phone calls then are calling me a lot now. And I'm not returning their calls." The leap out of the doghouse has come about through his second picture, "Top Gun," the gung-ho, hooray-for-us, ear-shattering movie about Navy fighter pilots that sold $21.6 million in tickets in its first 11 days of release and made some producers hastily revise their earlier estimates of this stocky British film maker. The critics, less influenced by box-office tallies, remain largely unconvinced. "Revved up but empty "MTV goes to "a cliche-ridden story swimming around among the jet those were just a few of the reviews of this story about the fliers at the Fighter Weapons School at Miramar Naval Air Station outside San Diego. Scott, who had hoped to earn more critical favor than he did with "The Hunger," took the reviews to heart.

But big bucks at the box office help smooth most people's ruffled feathers, and he is no exception. "It's a roller-coaster ride," he said the other day. "An audio-visual experience. Think and you're dead. Some critics accuse it of being too flashy, but that's the nature of the piece.

Those fliers are the rock 'n' roll stars of the skies. "As for the criticism that our actors (among them Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards) are too young, they're almost exactly the same ages as the fliers at Top Gun: mid-20s." ful TV-commercial director who with his brother Ridley Scott has won almost every award in the commercials field, facing another long delay. It all seemed depressingly familiar. Long before he got his first film off the ground, he had worked for a year on another film, "Alive," prior to it being abandoned. He then spent six months working on "Fire on the Mountain." Nothing came of it.

And before he left the project, he worked for three months on "Star-man." After all that, "The Hunger" an updated story about vampirism starring Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie proved a flop. "I screwed up," he now says, mat-ter-of-factly. "The new actor we approached for 'Man on Fire' wanted certain changes," said Scott, "and I could see another year's work looming ahead of me. And then, out of the blue, Don and Jerry approached me about making 'Top And I jumped at it." Scott knew nothing at all about Top Gun the name given the prestigious Fighter Weapons School, where the best American pilots are trained. But the idea of working with such a crack group appealed greatly.

And he knew and liked Tom Cruise, the young actor both Simpson and Bruckheimer favored for the lead role. Cruise had worked for Ridley Scott on "Legend" in London, and the three of them had socialized occasionally. "I felt he had just the right arrogance, in the best sense of the word, for the role," said Tony Scott. "The pilots at Miramar all have charm and arrogance. And Tom really entered into the spirit of things.

He went to Miramar three months in advance and went out eating and drinking with the guys." Some have suggested that Kelly McGillis, who plays Charlotte Blackwood, a civilian astrophysicist in the movie, is both too mature and too big a mate for Cruise. Wrote one critic: "McGillis is blessed with an intelligent and mature face that doesn't blend that well with Cruise's one-note grinning." "I don't agree with that," said Scott. "She was my first choice. She's modeled on a real woman, Christine Fox at Miramar, ho does what Kelly docs in the film digests information about enemy planes and eapcrj and recycles it to the n.ers at Top Gun. "For it to work, for her to be able to run.

up talk technical jargon in front of those fighter pilots, she ha 3 to be a mature-locking actress. And I think she's just rght." Uu "SK PIERCE "UMBWW" Stsrh MITCHELL TROY DC'IWUE 0AVF SIEVCNE77 XJSiA as Kami Produced ty HQ FCG Story and Scitrr'i. Assoccte Producer HOPE HOLIDAY Directed byFRAWH.r,;S CmflmLmmLALPUURESRELEASE SANTA ANA 714(640-7444 A ftttIT AMI hQut i Mourwooo I Mouywood Pocific 1 Oo I 0 fmBrn Ch'Kt lAREtsntio AMC S'OCTOTH IUENA 9kH UA IAWW costa itrsA iWHl usa toct kxza Poc tag Soct 254 01 TOM n4 56i5660 HAWTHOtNl auc Mcwmomt IIV1HI oweflj UlfwOOO ocic iwnraod Cvm SouKi ICW KACM bA Hrv Pacific I Aioo-m A7UVA (MVS on 32 TA fcii SC27 VALCNCIA 131" 10 805.255 3966 VAN NUTS OClC I ro Njy Orn 763500 WfST COVWA Wooabfiflg tit 92S1 MAMU SANTA ft SHMGS POCK I SOMO St'ifjt 46-6649 STANTON t3001 V9 Ckv TA 6'0567 SoCO1 Coon 84 60 2667 NOV SHOWIHG MONTEKT Htt AHOIAMA CITY owo" MoMfwr Poctc A'wvtcono Man S4 5AM024 SiS.893-6441 MOITH HOUTWOOO rtlAMOUNT UA lAtWM oc Roj'On Dtwt-ffi 634-AI51 OtANSt rVftSiM AWC Mot UA Hi Ontnt T4 637-0340 TA-liii 04vl tOCUM MUS UA CI AMC B5no nm eiAio iai trtkAOMO Ki 4ei- 664 i3 notes Otrwfi 16 sK11 A WlftT r6i-44ii SM LU4 Ci0 64 344 tAir't MHIH fciiWirt.C Scott first learned about the project two years ago when he was on a raft trip on the Colorado River with a group that included producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. At that time, they had another director in mind for 'Top Gun" and Scott himself was preparing a movie for Anion Milchan, "Man on Fire," which he hoped Robert Duvall would do. "I remember listening to Don and Jerry and thinking what a good idea it sounded," said Scott "But at that point another cLrectcr was involved." "Man on Fire," the story of a man mho seta out to hunt down a bunch of killers after the daughter of the Italian y.ila he is pa.d to guard a k.itiped and four, 3 deal had ctrfjed Scott for teste tr.e.

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