Anyone proclaiming that the age of the movie star is almost over in the era of franchises and IP driving ticket sales above all esle needn’t look much further than Tom Cruise and Top Gun: Maverick to dispel that notion, at least for the time being.
Sure, Joseph Kosinski’s aerial extravaganza is a sequel, but a massive section of the target audience weren’t even born when Tony Scott’s original flew into theaters back in 1986, while there’s a great deal of people who went into Pete Mitchell’s return without having seen the opener, with the stunning trailers and rave reviews selling them on the project, as opposed to legacy and nostalgia.
Maverick smashed records over Memorial Day weekend, nabbing $151 million through its first four days on domestic screens, on top of $124 million from overseas markets. That means the actor and producer’s long-awaited return to the skies is already one of Cruise’s top-grossing movies ever that doesn’t hail from his marquee run as Mission: Impossible‘s Ethan Hunt.
On home soil, Maverick is the seventh top-earning title in the Cruise back catalogue (one of which includes his pre-credits cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember), and it’ll pass Jerry Maguire and Rain Man to move up to fifth by the end of today. On the global front, it’s already in ninth place, but will surge ahead of his last collaboration with Kosinski on Oblivion within the next 24 hours.
The 59 year-old is already fighting the good fight to save the theatrical industry from the clutches of the pandemic, and Top Gun: Maverick has him doing it serious style.
