In Tom Cruise‘s 40-year career, Top Gun: Maverick has achieved the highest-grossing opening. It is also his first movie to exceed $100 million on the opening weekend.
Tom Cruise has accomplished one of the most daring stunts of his career: getting the audience to go to the movies for something other than superheroes.
Top Gun: Maverick – Earnings
Top Gun: Maverick collected $134 million from 4,732 theaters on its opening weekend. All-American Paramount and Skydance’s action-adventure is expecting to collect $151 million through Monday. Surpassing expectations it will set up a new high-water mark for Memorial Day opening weekends.
This is all thanks to the spectacular reviews and heaping doses of nostalgia. As well as getting Tom Cruise back in the cockpit to perform real aerial stunts as pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
At the International box office, the movie has made an impressive sum of $124 million. This brings the total earnings of Top Gun: Maverick to $248 million worldwide. The movie is also now among the top post-pandemic era openings. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($260 million), “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($187 million), and “The Batman” ($134 million).
When Paramount gave the green light for the sequel of 1986’s “Top Gun” movie its target audience was people over 40 years old. And this seems to have paid them well (literally and metaphorically). People from this age group (55%) turned out in force which is remarkable considering this demographic has been the most reluctant to return to the theaters.
The film’s positive word of mouth, as well as the impressive stunt, managed to attract a significant percentage of millennials who were not born when ‘Top Gun’ opened 36 years ago.
Reviews
David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research called the film’s three-day figure “outstanding”. He also adds “The source material remains strong, the execution is excellent, and Tom Cruise makes it work impeccably well”.
Imax’s CEO Rich Gelfond said, “If you thought movies were dead, go see ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and then let me know what you think”.
Despite numerous delays (the “Top Gun” sequel was scheduled to release in the summer of 2020), Cruise was adamant that “Maverick” not follow in the footsteps of Paramount’s other straight-to-streaming films. And the two-year wait finally seems to be paying off. It has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and a rare “A+” CinemaScore.
Paramount’s domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson says “This movie is going to have a huge run. It’s going to draw people to theaters who haven’t been in a long time.”
Top Gun: Maverick also needs theaters to justify its hefty $170 million production budget, which does not include the tens of millions spent on promoting the movie worldwide. Those efforts included a flashy premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which included eight fighter jets flying over the Croisette. Skydance Media co-produced and co-financed the film.
Other films
As of now, only one film has been brave enough to go against Top Gun: Maverick which is Disney and 20th Century’s “The Bob’s Burgers Movie”. This movie made an impressive $12.6 million from 3,425 theaters, enough for third place on box office charts.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, has generated $375 million in North America and a huge $868.7 million globally to date. Universal’s animated heist comedy “The Bad Guys” made up $4.6 million from 2,944 screens.