Tom Cruise announced yesterday (29 August) that a sequel to 1990’s Days of Thunder was finally in the works after more than three decades of fan anticipation. The sequel’s announcement came via a video in which Cruise appears alongside Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway, who will be starring in the film as a new character.
In the original, Cruise’s love interest Dr Claire Lewicki was played by his now-ex-wife Nicole Kidman. The pair met on set in 1989 and married just a few months later before eventually divorcing in 2001.
Kidman is, understandably, not coming back for the sequel, and The Odyssey‘s Hathaway is a more than fitting choice to play the female lead – whether or not the character is a love interest.
But not everyone agrees. Actor Randy Quaid, who starred in the original Days of Thunder, recently took to X to blast Hathaway’s casting, unleashing a rant against both the actress and Cruise.
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“We need Nicole back,” Quaid wrote. “Don’t be a p***y, @TomCruise. You need the original girl. It’s not personal; it’s filmmaking. Anne isn’t sexy, because and if you haven’t noticed, she’s pregnant.”
Hathaway is currently expecting her third child with husband Adam Shulman and said in the Days of Thunder 2 announcement video she would “have this baby, then make the movie”.
In another post, Quaid continued: “If I were in control of production, a real sequel worth watching for DAYS OF THUNDER would be seeing Tom and Nicole together on screen again. We don’t need a new girl; we need a new race car!”
Quaid then wrote a further post calling Hathaway a “leftist, woke, horrible choice” for the film that focuses on NASCAR racing, saying that the sport’s fans are MAGA supporters.
He added: “The sexy older chick for Tom in this film needs to be Nicole. That’s the casting that would sell the idea.
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“It’s interesting because when we made the first one there was also a rush to get it out; editors slept in the cutting room on shifts. This is a weird thing, like they want it to come out and tank.”
Hathaway has not responded to Quaid’s rant, nor has Cruise or Kidman.
Deadline reported that Hathaway is expected to play the engineer and owner of a racing team, while Cruise will reprise his role as Cole Trickle. In the original film, it was Quaid’s character Tim Daland who owned a racing team.
Days of Thunder 2 is scheduled to be released in cinemas on 2 June 2028.
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Stephanie is a freelance news writer, who previously covered WWE and AEW for Digital Spy.
After graduating with a degree in history from Queen Mary University, London, she studied journalism at Birkbeck University.
Outside of her work at Digital Spy, she writes about pop culture, with a special focus towards Irish media and how it intersects with politics.
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