The milestones keep rolling. Top Gun: Maverick grossed $679 million in North America, enough to overtake Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War ($678 million) as the sixth highest-grossing film in domestic box office history.
It’s a particularly impressive benchmark, given that 2018’s hero-only adventure Avengers: Infinity War did a little to build anticipation. It served as part one (2019’s “Endgame” was part two) of Marvel’s epic culmination of more than 20 films – most of which were box office hits in their own right – spanning 10 years. Talk about hype.
Sure, “Maverick” had Tom Cruise, a box-office hero, for himself. But moviegoers hadn’t felt the need for speed in more than 30 years; The sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun” was anything but a guaranteed hit.
But thanks to excellent word of mouth and regular customers, “Maverick” continues to defy all odds. And there’s a chance the film will continue to climb the box office charts. Can the ‘Top Gun’ sequel beat 2018’s blockbuster ‘Black Panther’ and its $700.4 million mark to crack the top five domestic grosss of all time?
It would take some perseverance at this point, but it’s certainly not out of the question. Top Gun 2 will likely continue to sell tickets as the film doesn’t have much competition on the horizon. It’s going to be pretty desolate at the box office through November when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters. Disney will likely re-release the original superhero sensation in anticipation of the sequel, which could boost Black Panther’s revenues even further. But Maverick is no stranger to overcoming the impossible.
Internationally, “Top Gun: Maverick” has grossed more than 700 million US dollars – and without playing in China or Russia, two major overseas markets. The highest-revenue countries outside of North America include the United Kingdom ($95 million), Japan ($82 million), Korea ($62 million), Australia ($60 million), and France ( $52.8 million). Globally, it is the 13th highest-grossing film of all time with $1.379 billion to date.
Top Gun: Maverick debuted on the big screen in May and set a new Memorial Day weekend opening record for $160.5 million. The film stayed in the top five on the weekend charts for 10 weeks, falling to sixth place on its 11th weekend before miraculously returning to number 2 on its 12th edition. “This. Doesn’t. Happen,” Jeff Bock, Media Analyst at Exhibitor Relations, wrote on Twitter.
Among the film’s numerous record-breaking events, “Maverick” is Cruise’s first film to surpass $100 million in a single weekend and his first to reach $1 billion at the worldwide box office. The movie star will be handsomely rewarded for rejuvenating the nation’s cinemas. By the time Maverick hits theaters and lands on Paramount+, Cruise is expected to be making at least $100 million from ticket sales, his salary, and his eventual cuts in home entertainment rentals and streaming revenue.
Joseph Kosinski directed the long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick, set decades after the original and following Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell as he trains a young group of aviators for a dangerous mission. The cast includes Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Connelly and Val Kilmer, who played Iceman in the first Top Gun.