The USS Midway aircraft carrier is an ideal venue for a red carpet fan event promoting the long-delayed “Top Gun” sequel: “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Rumor has it that Tom Cruise himself may be landing via helicopter on the flight deck to take part in the May 4 festivities.

“I cannot disclose the talent that is attending, as that is still being confirmed,” said Jennifer Gendron, the film’s marketing representative. She divulged that some of the day’s activities will unfold aboard the Midway and a screening will take place in the Gaslamp.

She didn’t give details, but that most likely will take place at the upscale Theatre Box cinema at 701 Fifth Ave. “There is a naval base screening as well,” Gendron said.

A sneak peek of the film is expected at the CinemaCon convention of movie theater owners at today’s wrap-up in Las Vegas and at the Cannes Film Festival before the movie debuts in theaters May 27.

A source close to Kenny Loggins confirmed that the singer will be in San Diego for the May 4 premiere. Earlier this year, it was revealed that his song, “Danger Zone,” featured in 1986’s “Top Gun,” is returning to the sequel’s soundtrack.

It also was publicized Monday that Lady Gaga is releasing her new single, “Hold My Hand,” in May, and it will be in the soundtrack. Her song already is generating Oscar contender buzz among entertainment industry insiders.

The release of “Top Gun: Maverick” has been a long time coming. Shooting began in 2018, and the movie originally was slated for a mid-2019 debut. San Diegans may remember that Cruise made a surprise appearance in Hall H of San Diego Comic-Con International in 2019 to show off a trailer of the sequel, much of which was shot here.

The film’s debut, though, was bumped to June 26, 2020 — until the pandemic turned theater complexes into ghost towns.

Its release was postponed for six more months, then again to November 2021 to usher in the holiday season. But the emergence of the Delta variant triggered another delay.

The International Movie Database (IMDb) reports that this is the longest-advertised film in motion picture history due to a nearly three-year gap between its first trailer and its official release.

Paramount Pictures describes the plot of the sequel, directed by Joseph Kosinski, as picking up with Pete Mitchell, aka “Maverick,” after he served more than 30 years as a naval aviator. He’s now a courageous test pilot recruited to instruct some Navy Top Gun graduates for a special mission “the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.”

That assignment brings Maverick face-to-face with Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (played by Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s deceased wingman, Lt. Nick Bradshaw, “Goose.”

In the sequel, Maverick must confront his past, the loss of his friend and his fears, and lead a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who selected to fly it.

Maverick’s love interest in this film is played by Jennifer Connelly. Diverse cast members also include Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis and Ed Harris.

On April 18, Paramount released a behind-the-scenes featurette detailing the training program the actors went through to prepare for filming.

“I absolutely underestimated the training that it would take to be able to withstand the G forces that we were pulling,” Teller told talk show host Graham Norton. “People were throwing up in the cockpit.”

Connelly confessed to Norton that she had suffered from a crippling fear of flying for years and hadn’t divulged that fear to Cruise when she was selected for her role. Little did she know she soon would be flying in a World War II-era P-51 Mustang with Cruise at the controls. Turns out, the vintage plane, which appears in the movie, belongs to Cruise, a seasoned pilot.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer explained in the training video that the aviation sequences had to be real so the actors were put through three months of grueling preparation.

“We worked with the Navy and the Top Gun school to formulate how to shoot it practically because, if we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna fly in the F-18s,” Cruise said.

The regimen included training on how to escape from a cockpit under water. “We had to go through a challenging under water program. You’re flipped, inverted and you’re having to try and get out,” Cruise said.

Cast members also went through aerobatics in an L-39 Albatros training jet, then graduated to the F/A-18 Super Hornet where they experienced launching off a carrier. They were given instructions in cinematography and lighting and were taught to control the cameras in the tight quarters of a cockpit.

“Everyone thought it would be impossible for actors to really be in the jets,” Teller said in the featurette film clip. “But that’s the gift that Tom gave us,” added actor Glen Powell. “By the time we got up there, we could handle it.”

All of this required lots of camera time. In an Empire Magazine interview, Kosinski estimated that they shot about 800 hours of footage — “as much footage as the three ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies combined.”

As for the 36-year delay in releasing a sequel, Cruise addresses it in the Paramount behind-the-scenes clip: “I wasn’t ready to make a sequel until we had a special story worthy of a sequel and until technology evolved so we could delve deeper into the experience of a fighter pilot.”

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