'Top Gun: Maverick' director says the US Navy 'wiped' his camera clean because he photographed something he 'wasn't supposed to capture'

• Joseph Kosinski, the "Top Gun: Maverick" director, said the US Navy "wiped clean" his camera.
• Kosinski said he visited top-secret military bases during the film's preproduction.

When Tom Cruise climbed back into the cockpit for "Top Gun: Maverick," the film's director, Joseph Kosinski, was exploring the iconic pilot's life over 30 years after the 1986 movie.

The 2022 movie has been hugely successful, raking in $1.48 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, thanks to its emotional story and gripping aerial action sequences.

Part of the success is attributable to Kosinski putting the audience in the jets with the pilots, and he recently told Deadline that he worked closely with the US Navy to make sure it was an authentic representation of the military.

The director also said that after one of his visits to a secret base, the US Navy confiscated his camera.

Kosinski said: "So, I got to live that dream of being in the Navy for a couple years. I got to go to places that civilians don't get to go to. I got to see things that no civilian would get to see. I had my camera confiscated at one point. Wiped clean."

The "Tron: Legacy" and "Oblivion" director added that in his "quest for authenticity," he thought he took a photograph of something he wasn't supposed to see.

Kosinski added: "I took some pictures and maybe captured something I wasn't supposed to capture, and my camera was quickly returned to me without any photos on it."

The director went on to say that it was a "dream" to collaborate with the US Navy on "Top Gun: Maverick."

Kosinski said: "I think you feel it when you see it, because you don't feel like you're in a Hollywood-designed setting. There's a reality to it. We collaborated with the actual engineers who make the real secret aircraft. It was just a dream come true."