Reese Witherspoon shares unlikely source of inspiration for 'Legally Blonde 3'

You might not think Reese Witherspoon's chipper attorney Elle Woods and Tom Cruise's steely Pete "Maverick" Mitchell have much in common -- but you'd be wrong.

In a new interview with USA Today, Witherspoon, who portrayed the perpetually upbeat lawyer in the original "Legally Blonde" movies, said a third film in the franchise -- which has long been in development -- might owe a debt to Cruise's biggest-ever hit, "Top Gun: Maverick," which flew into theaters back in May, 36 years after the original.

"I'm still hoping that 'Legally Blonde 3' is gonna come together in the right way," Witherspoon told the outlet. "It's just like 'Top Gun': They waited a long time to make another version of that movie, and I loved the nostalgia piece they incorporated in it."

The actress and producer added that the latest "Top Gun" film "definitely that gave us a lot of inspiration about what we would want to do with Elle Woods and make sure that we had all those same touchstones that mattered to people back then."

"I feel like these characters are my friends, so I safeguard them," she said. "I would never make the subpar, mediocre version of their story."

Mindy Kaling is co-writing the third film, which is set to follow 2003's "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde." An exact release date has not yet been set, but according to IMDb, the film is tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2023.