Anne Hathaway is joining Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder 2, and Paramount Pictures has set the racing sequel for June 2, 2028. Cruise broke the news on his social platforms with a picture of the two actors leaning against a NASCAR race car in Daytona, a signal that the studio is finally moving the project from talk to track.
The casting gives the sequel a second major star beside Cruise, who is returning as NASCAR driver Cole Trickle. Hathaway is expected to play a team owner and engineer, a detail that helps define her place in the film even as the plot details remain unknown. That gap matters because the role suggests a story built around the garage and the boardroom as much as the driver’s seat, which is enough to turn a title like Days of Thunder into something more than nostalgia. For readers following the project, the date is the point: Paramount has now made the movie a fixed theatrical event nearly 38 years after the original hit screens.
The timing also gives the sequel a clear commercial frame. It will be filmed for iMax and will also be available in Dolby cinemas, 4DX and premium large formats, signaling that Paramount wants the movie to play as a wide-format event when it arrives. Jonathan Levine has been tapped to direct, Will Staples wrote the script, and Cruise is producing alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper. A separate development piece on Days Of Thunder 2 looks set to roll with Tom Cruise and Jonathan Levine can be found here:
The original Days of Thunder, directed by Tony Scott and written by Robert Towne, was released in the summer of 1990 and took in $82.6 million domestically and $157.9 million worldwide. Cruise played Cole Trickle then, and he is back in the same role now, with Paramount betting that the combination of a familiar name, a new star in Hathaway and a 2028 release date is enough to bring the franchise back into the lane.
What remains unresolved is the shape of the story itself. The movie has a release date, a director, a script and a cast, but not a disclosed plot, and that leaves the sequel’s biggest commercial question untouched until Paramount shows more than a title and a pair of names.
