No one knows the Hollywood franchise game better than Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer behind Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, Beverly Hills Cop, and the upcoming Lone Ranger. During his more than 35 years of making movies, most of his giant blockbusters have yielded big-budget sequels — except the one that moviegoers are perhaps the hungriest to revisit: Top Gun. After years of planning to send Tom Cruise’s rebel flyboy back into the sky were interrupted by the tragic death of director Tony Scott, who helmed the 1986 original, Bruckheimer says Top Gun 2 is still a Go.

“We still want to do it with Tom,...