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 $124 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 theatres. 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.”
