Tom Cruise may have accomplished one of the most daring stunts of his career – urging audiences to go to the movies for something that didn’t include superheroes.
Top Gun: Maverick achieved massive ticket sales in its opening weekend, raising $134 million from a record 4,732 North American movie theaters. The all-American adventure Paramount and Skydance is expected to raise $151 million through Monday, defying expectations while also setting a new watermark for Memorial Day opening weekends. That’s thanks to dazzling reviews, cumulative doses of nostalgia and getting Cruise back in the cockpit performing real aerial stunts as pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
“Top Gun: Maverick” is the highest-grossing debut of Cruz’s 40-year career, and his first to top $100 million in its opening weekend. War of the Worlds, which opened to $64 million in 2005, was previously Cruise’s biggest weekend opening.
Audiences over 40, the people who were top of the line when Paramount lit up green the sequel to 1986’s Top Gun, turned out strong, which is impressive because this demographic has been the most reluctant to return to theaters. The film’s positive word of mouth should be instrumental in reaching younger audiences, who weren’t quite alive when “Top Gun” opened 36 years ago.
David A. Gross, who runs film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research, described the film’s three-day-long character as “brilliant.”
“The source material is still solid, the execution is excellent, and Tom Cruise makes it work perfectly,” he says.
“Top Gun: Maverick” continues Paramount’s stellar box office streak, marking the studio’s fifth film to open this year at number one. Without the help of comic books or raging dinosaurs, the studio’s 2022 roster – also made up of “Sonic the Hedgehog” ($182 million in North America), “The Lost City” ($100 million in North America), “Scream” ( $81 million) in North America) and “Jackass Forever” ($57 million in North America) – had huge resonances in theaters. It’s an impressive recovery since Paramount has hardly released any films during the pandemic, instead sending big titles like “The Tomorrow War” by Chris Pratt, The Trial of the Chicago 7 by Aaron Sorkin, and Eddie Murphy’s “Coming 2 America.” to live broadcast services.
Despite countless delays (“Top Gun” sequels were scheduled to open in the summer of 2020 until COVID-19 scrambled those plans), Cruise was adamant that “Maverick” didn’t follow in those films. The two-year wait has already begun to pay off since the film was enthusiastically reviewed. It has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an “A+” CinemaScore.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, PG-13 “Top Gun: Maverick” kicks off decades after the original and sees Maverick train a new group of seductive pilots for a crucial mission. The cast includes Miles Teller, Glenn Powell, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Connelly and Val Kilmer, who played Iceman in the first “Top Gun”.
Top Gun: Maverick also needs movie theaters to justify its massive production budget of $170 million, which does not include the tens of millions spent promoting the film to audiences around the world. Those efforts included a spectacular showing at the Cannes Film Festival, which culminated with eight fighter jets flying over the Croisette (paid for by the French government). Skydance Media co-produced and financed the film.
Only one movie, Disney’s “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” of the 20th century, was brave enough to open it up against “Top Gun: Maverick.” For a movie based on a long-running animated television show, “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” brought in $12 million from 3,425 places, enough for third place in the box office tables. The movie should finish Memorial Day with $15.3 million.
Behind “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “The Bob’s Burgers Movie,” which fell to number two after three weeks at the top of the domestic box office charts. Disney’s latest Marvel Cinematic Universe release is down 50% to add $16 million from 3,805 cinemas in its fourth weekend of release. The sequel to the superhero, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, has grossed $375 million so far.
In fourth place, “Downton Abbey: A New Era” has fallen 63% since its opening, bringing in $5.9 million between Friday and Sunday. It is estimated to earn $7.5 million from 3,830 theaters by Monday. After two weeks in theaters, the big-screen sequel to the beloved British TV show grossed $30 million in North America and $68.9 million worldwide. The follow-up movie cost $40 million to produce, which means the latest “Downton” adventure has ways to cut it short before getting into the black movie.
Universal’s animated comedy “The Bad Guys” rounded out the top five with $4.6 million from 2,944 sites. By Monday, the family-friendly movie should make $6.1 million, which would take its domestic tally to $82 million.
More is coming…
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