Top Gun: Maverick has hit the domestic box office Top 10 for the first time in 20 weeks since its release. The film is a sequel of many years later to the hit from 1986 Top Gun, which starred Tom Cruise as the top pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. The film sees the character, now in his fifties, return to the Top Gun program to teach a new crop of young pilots how to complete an extremely dangerous mission. One wrinkle in his assignment is the fact that one of these students is Rooster Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of the late Goose Bradshaw, who blames Maverick for his father’s death. The film also stars Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell and Val Kilmer as Iceman.
Top Gun: MaverickThe incredible opening weekend of $126.7 million turned out to be just the beginning of the film, exceeding all expectations and then some. At the time of writing, the sequel has grossed $1.48 billion worldwide and has become the fifth highest-grossing domestic film of all time. Independent thinking person has strangled the box office for the past 19 weeks, staying in the US Top 10 (and more often the Top 5) despite competition from the more than 30 newer big-release movies that came out between May 27 and September 30, including huge blockbusters like Jurassic World Dominion and Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder.
Per Deadlinesaw the domestic box office hit three new movies in the top 10 this weekend Smile took the #1 slot, the Shawn Mendes family musical Lyle, Lyle Crocodile took #2, David O. Russell’s star-studded historical film Amsterdam took #3, and the sequel to the slasher terrier 2 clawed its way to #10. With leftovers like The woman king, don’t worry babyand the Avatar re-release to fill in the gaps, this is officially the first weekend that Top Gun: Maverick hasn’t been in the Top 10 since its release more than four months ago.
Why was Top Gun: Maverick such a success?
Unusually for a film that is a worldwide success, nearly half of its total gross came from the domestic box office. Typically, international markets make up a much larger proportion of an action movie’s overall profit, but the unique socio-political approach to Top Gun: Maverick seems to have allowed it to have broad appeal in all areas. However, movies about the US military have historically performed better in America Independent thinking person combined global superstar Tom Cruise with a storyline that keeps the enemy nation intentionally ambiguous, a gamble that seems to be paying off.
That calculated move toward international gains seems to have paired well with the fact that people seem to genuinely love Top Gun: Maverick. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 96% rating and a 99% audience rating. Audiences are likely to rave about the in-camera flight effects, a holdover from Cruise’s dedication to real-life stunts he performed on the Mission Impossible franchisee. With every effort to push the film over the top, it makes sense why it would turn out to be such a massive hit.
Source: Deadline
