Maverick’ Flies Past $1 Billion Worldwide

Paramount and Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick earned another $30.5 million (-31%) in its fifth weekend of domestic release. That put the film back in the top slot for the weekend, a remarkable achievement in any era let alone our frontloaded, opening weekend-centric theatrical environment and with two solid openers on its tail. That fifth-weekend gross is the second-biggest such fifth-weekend gross (American Sniper didn’t expand into wide release until its fourth weekend) between Titanic ($30 million in 1998) and Avatar ($42 million in 2010). It also puts its domestic total at $521.723 million. With a new overseas total (it was, again, the top movie overseas too dropping just 26%) of $487 million, Tom Cruise’s $170 million legacy sequel has now earned $1.005 billion worldwide. Yes, the Joseph Kosinski-directed flick just cracked $1 billion worldwide. That’s miracle number one.

The film now ranks 15th on the all-time domestic chart between Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($515 million in 2019) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($532 million in 2016). It’s now the biggest-grossing movie since The Lion King ($543 million). Once it passes the Jon Favreau-directed remake (and The Dark Knight’s unadjusted $534 million total), it’ll be the 12th-biggest domestic of all time and the biggest such grosser since Avengers: Endgame ($858 million). At a “normal” rate of descent, and nothing about this film’s performance has been normal thus far, it’ll end its run with around $585 million domestic just below Incredibles 2 ($608 million). However, it’s pulling James Cameron-worthy legs in the middle of the summer (no holiday blitz giving it a boost) and amid a halfway crowded June slate. $625 million-plus is almost assured.

That’s partially because Independence Day weekend (current national mood notwithstanding) is likely to give it yet another kick in the ass, while there just aren’t that many big movies left after Minions: The Rise of Gru next weekend, Thor: Love and Thunder on July 8 and Jordan Peele’s Nope (at least domestically) on July 22. Unless Bullet Train just goes bonkers on August 6 (miracle number three?), the current and future tentpoles are going to run the tables well into September. It’s already leggier than Aladdin ($356 million from a $117 million Fri-Mon launch) among huge Memorial Day openers, and it’s already the leggiest $100 million-plus opener with 4.1x its $126 million Fri-Sun opening weekend (and 3.25x its $160.5 million holiday launch). It’s almost certain to pass the unadjusted $600 million gross of Titanic back in 1997 and 1998.

It may pass Titanic’s $658 million lifetime gross (including the 2012 3-D reissue) to become Paramount’s biggest domestic earner and becoming the seventh-biggest domestic grosser ever. Even adjusted for inflation, it might end up behind only Grease ($188 million in 1978/$706 million adjusted) and Titanic ($1.2 billion adjusted) among Paramount pictures while ending behind only Thunderball ($65 million in 1965/$686 million adjusted) among all non-fantasy action movies. Globally speaking, it is now the 50th movie to top $1 billion and currently sits pennies below The Dark Knight ($1.006 billion). It joins The Dark Knight, Rogue One and Black Panther as films that passed $1 billion with over 50% of the money coming from North America and will soon pass Joker ($1.073 billion) to become the second biggest “never played in China” grosser behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9 billion).

Top Gun: Maverick is the biggest global grosser and biggest domestic grosser of 2022, becoming the first non-fantasy actioner to top the domestic summer box office (worldwide seems likely but not yet guaranteed) since Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible II in 2000. It has pulled an overwhelming swath of regular moviegoers, Tom Cruise fans, Top Gun fans and the sort of irregular moviegoers who only show up for once-in-a-generation events like (relatively speaking), Avatar, American Sniper, The Passion of the Christ and Black Panther. It has so ridiculously overperformed that it partially makes up for a lighter-than-hoped summer theatrical slate. It may also well become a rising tide lifts all boats situation whereby those irregular filmgoers decide that they like going to the cinema and show up for more “regular movies.” That would be miracle number two.