LOS ANGELES, May 30 (US): 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” had huge 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 the dazzling reviews, cumulative doses of nostalgia and cruise recovery in the cockpit to perform real air stunts like pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Reuters reports.
“Top Gun: Maverick” is the highest-grossing debut of Cruz’s 40-year career, and his first to cross $100 million in its opening weekend. War of the Worlds, which opened to $64 million in 2005, was Cruise’s biggest opening weekend.
Audiences over the age of 40, the ones 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.
Described by David A. Gross, who runs film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research, labeled the film’s three-day-old character as “cool.”
“The source material is still solid, the execution is excellent, and Tom Cruise makes it work very well,” 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 slate also consists of “Sonic the Hedgehog” ($182 million in North America), “The Lost City” ($100 million in North America), “Scream” (81 ($1 million in North America) and “Jackass Forever” ($57 million in North America) – resonated in theaters in a big way. It’s an impressive rebound 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 broadcasting services.
Despite countless delays (Top Gun 2 was scheduled to open in the summer of 2020 until COVID-19 scrambled those plans), Cruz was adamant that Maverick wasn’t following in his footsteps. those movies. The two-year wait is already paying off since the film has been 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” movie.
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.
MI