Top Gun ‘Elvis’ Beats: Maverick’ in Close Box Office Battle

King is #1 at the domestic box office.

After a fierce box office fight, Elvis defeated Top Gun: Maverick to take the number one spot on the North American box office charts.

Over the weekend, “Elvis” and “Top Gun: Maverick” were in the spotlight as King of Rock and Roll took first on Friday and slipped to second on Saturday. Then on Sunday, the films were tied for number one in North America, with each reportedly earning an estimated $30.5 million between Friday and Sunday.

With final results announced Monday, “Elvis” grossed $31.1 million from 3,906 theaters, while “Top Gun: Maverick” grossed $29.6 million from 3,948 places.

Although “Elvis” eventually took the box office crown, both films were able to achieve a solid result. For “Elvis,” the $31 million debut is promising for an adult-oriented drama given that core demographics traditionally aren’t in a rush to see a movie in the opening weekend. However, Warner Bros. spent $85 million to make the movie, not counting marketing or distribution costs, so “Elvis” has to keep playing in theaters all summer long to make a profit.

It helps that “Elvis,” a larger-than-life musical biopic starring Austin Butler, was so well received by audiences, who gave the movie “A-” CinemaScore. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the film chronicles the actor’s meteoric rise to fame through the eyes of his morally ambiguous director, Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks).

For Maverick, taking second place at this point in his theatrical career is a relentless win—and a testament to the film’s unprecedented strength at the box office. A movie of this kind was unheard of with ticket sales in its fifth weekend of release. To date, it has grossed $520 million at the domestic box office and stands as the highest grossing film of the year in North America.

With great word of mouth and critical acclaim, the nostalgia-fueled sequel to Paramount became the first Tom Cruise film to cross $1 billion at the worldwide box office, with global revenues currently at $1.006 billion. Notably, it is the first movie of the year and second only to COVID times (after Sony’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” which grossed $1.9 billion) to cross the $1 billion mark.

In general, this weekend at the box office, owners of cinemas are finally feeling optimistic. That’s because, for the first time in the COVID times, four films — Elvis’ and fellow newcomer, Universal Blumhouse thriller “The Black Phone,” plus global “Maverick” and “Jurassic World Dominion” — each made $20 million or more. Over the weekend, a fifth movie, Disney Pixar’s “Lightyear,” approached $17 million.



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