How the Pentagon Fuels the Military Entertainment Complex

The new film, Top Gun Maverick, is breaking box office records and has already become the highest grossing film of actor Tom Cruise’s career. Raking in $86 million over last weekend alone, Top Gun Maverick, which is a sequel to the 1986 classic, has received top ratings from critics and audiences. But the new film was made in close conjunction with the U.S. military. This is hardly surprising given that the film is set within the military and requires generous use of massive military hardware that only the Pentagon could provide.

Roger Stahl wrote a recent op-ed in the LA Times, saying, “Americans should have a right to know the extent of the military’s influence on the shows and films they consume.” Stahl is the director of a new documentary available via the Media Education Foundation called, Theaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA Took Hollywood.