Anne Hathaway Is Joining Days of Thunder 2, and Tom Cruise Announced It Himself
Tom Cruise posted a photo of himself and Anne Hathaway leaning against a NASCAR stock car in Daytona over the weekend, which is how everybody found out she is in Days of Thunder 2. The same post set the release date: June 2, 2028.
Hathaway is expected to play a team owner and engineer — the business side of the garage rather than the passenger seat, which is a more interesting job than the 1990 original handed its one significant female character.
What is actually confirmed
- Tom Cruise returns as Cole Trickle, the hot-headed rookie he played in Tony Scott's original.
- Anne Hathaway joins as a team owner and engineer. Plot details beyond that are not public.
- Jonathan Levine directs, and his hiring is what fast-tracked the film into Cruise's next slot.
- Will Staples wrote the script. Cruise produces alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper.
- June 2, 2028 is the date. Shot for Imax, booked for Dolby, 4DX and premium large formats.
Why the casting is the story
Days of Thunder made $82.6M domestically and $157.9M worldwide in 1990, and it is remembered less for the racing than for introducing Cruise to Nicole Kidman, who played the neurosurgeon assigned to put him back together. Thirty-six years later the sequel is handing its female lead a team, a budget and a set of engineering problems instead of a bedside manner.
Hathaway arrives off a summer that would be an entire career for most people — The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey and The End of Oak Street — with Verity due in October.
The 1990 film gave its woman a stethoscope and a reaction shot. This one gives her the team. On paper that is a small change. In practice it is a different movie.
Summer 2028, and for once the woman in the racing picture is not there to worry about the driver.