Monaco’s Shibuya Productions invited a special guest to the premier screening of Top Gun: Maverick at Cannes, fulfilling French astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s lifelong dream of meeting his film hero Tom Cruise.

Whilst many people are huge admirers of astronauts, astronauts need someone to admire as well. In the case of French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, he was able to realise his dream of meeting his own screen idol, Tom Cruise, in a place no less than on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.

Thomas Pesquet has been in the news quite a bit recently as part of a crew who in April 2021 boarded the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month stint. It was a notable journey in that he was transported there on the Space Systems International Space X Crew Dragon, a partially reusable spacecraft, marking the new way space travel is heading.

The astronaut’s turn on the red carpet was thanks to an invitation from Monaco-based video games company, Shibuya Productions, who it is rumoured will be working on a project together. Rumours also abound about a possible collaboration between Pesquet and Cruise, who is scheduled to head into space and go aboard the ISS in preparation for a new film he will be shooting with director Doug Liman.

The evening was topped off by Cruise landing by helicopter to the site, and a passage of the Patrouille de France, the precision aerobatics demonstration unit of the French Air and Space Force, over the Palais des Festivals.

Photo: Cedric Biscay and Thomas Pesquet at Cannes 2022, photo by Shibuya Productions