Maverick’ Just Broke Another Record. Is It 2022’s Most Popular Movie?

The records just keep falling in Top Gun: Maverick’s wake. After setting a record as the top-selling digital release of all time as well as 2022’s highest-grossing global film, the movie now holds another title: most-watched premiere weekend globally on Paramount+.

The success is a credit to the enduring appeal of Tom Cruise in a jet as well as a smart release strategy for the fledgling digital streamer, which rebranded from CBS All Access last year.

Paramount+ has gained subscribers slowly, though it still lags well behind behemoths like Netflix and Disney+. The addition of premium-level content such as Top Gun: Maverick will be key to attracting new subscribers in 2023, as streaming wars head into a new phase.

Knowing families would be gathered together for the holidays and looking for movies to watch, Paramount+ released the film Thursday, Dec. 22. Through Christmas day (Dec. 25), the movie became the most-watched premiere ever for the service domestically, beating the record previously set by Sonic the Hedgehog 2 by 60%. It also bettered the viewership for Cruise’s other most popular franchise, the Mission Impossible series, by 140%. And it outpaced the original Top Gun (which, granted, people have had decades to watch) by almost 400%.

“The runaway success of this film across theatrical, digital and now in streaming is an undeniable proof point demonstrating the power of Paramount’s multi-platform release strategy,” Brian Robbins, oresident and CEO of Paramount Pictures and chief content officer, movies and kids & family, Paramount+, said in a statement. “Across all our 2022 titles, and now with Top Gun: Maverick, our studio has unlocked the value of variable windowing that streaming provides to augment a film’s overall success.”

The movie earned strong reviews from critics and audiences, which may have contributed to the high tune-in for its opening weekend on Paramount+. It got an A+ CinemaScore, joining a very limited list that includes classics such as the first Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Die Hard and Driving Miss Daisy, among fewer than 200 others.

The film had Cruise’s best-ever opening weekend domestically, earning $126 million—which would have been great pre-COVID (it’s the biggest-ever Memorial Day weekend release) and marked one of the biggest bows since movie theaters reopened. It finished as 2022’s highest-grossing film domestically, bringing in $718 million, well ahead of No. 2 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which, to be fair, is still in theaters and growing beyond its $428 million by the day).

In addition, the Top Gun: Maverick DVD release has been a record-setter. The movie has topped the NPD VideoScan First Alert chart for seven weeks and counting, becoming the first film to do so since Disney’s Frozen went for nine weeks at No. 1 in 2014. It ranks second overall for DVD sales this year, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Paramount’s buzz-building strategy included rereleasing Maverick in a handful of theaters, including IMAX locations, a couple weeks ahead of the Paramount+ release. The studio had also hoped to push the film into 10^th place on the all-time box office chart, though it didn’t quite get there, according to Box Office Mojo data.