By Rebecca Rubin
LOS ANGELES – Tom Cruise may have pulled off one of the most daring stunts of his career — getting audiences to go to the movies for something that doesn’t involve superheroes.
“Top Gun: Maverick” pulled in blockbuster ticket sales in its opening weekend, collecting $134 million from a record 4,732 North American cinemas. Paramount and Skydance’s all-American action adventure is expected to collect $151 million through Monday, defying expectations while also setting a new high-water mark for Memorial Day opening weekends. That’s thanks to dazzling reviews, heaping doses of nostalgia and getting Cruise back in the cockpit to perform real aerial stunts as pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
“Top Gun: Maverick” is the highest-grossing debut in Cruise’s 40-year career, and his first to surpass $100 million on opening weekend. “War of the Worlds,” which opened to $64 million in 2005, previously stood as Cruise’s biggest opening weekend.
Audiences over 40 years old, the people who were top of mind when Paramount greenlit a sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun,” turned out in force, which is impressive because that demographic has been the most reluctant to return to theaters. The film’s positive word of mouth should be helpful in reaching younger audiences, who were not alive when “Top Gun” opened 36 years ago.
David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, called the film’s three-day figure “outstanding.”
“The source material remains strong, the execution is excellent, and Tom Cruise makes it work impeccably well,” he says.
“Top Gun: Maverick” continues a stellar box office streak for Paramount, marking the studio’s fifth movie this year to open in first place. Without the assistance of comic books or raging dinosaurs, the studio’s 2022 slate — also consisting 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) — has resonated in theaters in a big way. It’s an impressive rebound since Paramount hardly released any movies during the pandemic, instead sending big titles like Chris Pratt’s “The Tomorrow War,” director Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and Eddie Murphy’s “Coming 2 America” to streaming services.
Despite countless delays (the “Top Gun” sequel was scheduled to open in the summer of 2020 until COVID-19 scrambled those plans), Cruise was adamant that “Maverick” not follow in the footsteps of those films. The two-year wait has already started to pay off since the film has been rapturously reviewed. It has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and an “A+” CinemaScore.
