Top Gun: Maverick became not only one of the biggest pandemic-era box office successes, but it also gave Tom Cruise the largest opening of his illustrious career, as the 36-year in the making sequel soared to $248M worldwide over the weekend.
Paramount have estimated that the critically revered sequel will end the Memorial Day weekend with $151M at the North American box-office, and while that’s subject to change, that currently means Maverick will fall a couple of million short of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’s $153M during this same frame back in 2007. For so many reasons though, Top Gun 2 is a through the stratosphere success story.
For starters it’s the biggest domestic ($151M) and worldwide opening ($248M) of Tom Cruise’s career, easily surpassing 2005’s War of the Worlds totals of $64.9M and $204M, and it becomes the fourth biggest pandemic era opening, a non-superhero related one at that, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260M), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($187M) and The Batman ($134M).
According to Deadline it also split the demographic, which means that both the under-35s (45%), who might have been reluctant to see a sequel to a movie from 1986, and the overs, who have been more hesitant when it comes to attending theatres, turned out in droves for the return of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Positive word-of-mouth should help it maintain a steady box-office trajectory, which is a pattern a lot of Tom Cruise films follow, until Jurassic World Dominion stomps into theatres in two weeks time.
SEE ALSO: Propelled to Greatness by Set Pieces: A Maverick Approach to Action Cinema
Let us know whether you saw Top Gun: Maverick over the weekend and whether you’ll be climbing into the cockpit once again by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose”.
Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.
Top Gun: Maverick features a cast including stars Tom Cruise (Maverick), Val Kilmer (Iceman), Jennifer Connolly (American Pastoral), Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Ed Harris (Westworld), Lewis Pullman (Bad Times at the El Royale), Glen Powell (Hidden Figures), Charles Parnell (Transformers: Age of Extinction), Bashir Salahuddin (Glow), Monica Barbaro (The Good Cop), Danny Ramirez (The Gifted), Manny Jacinto (The Good Place), Jay Ellis (Insecure), Kara Wang (Good Trouble), Jack Schumacher (Empire), Greg Tarzan Davis (Chicago P.D.), Jake Picking (Blockers), Raymond Lee (Mozart in the Jungle), Jean Louisa Kelly (Ant-Man) and Lyliana Wray (Strange Angel).
Top Gun: Maverick is out in cinemas now.
