Maverick’ Tops ‘The Batman’ And Passes $700 Million Worldwide

Even with Jurassic World: Dominion nabbing around $56 million on Friday (along with a solid A- from Cinemascore), Top Gun: Maverick continued to pull top-tier grosses. The Tom Cruise action drama earned another $14.1 million on day 15, dropping just 44% from last Friday. That pushes its domestic total to $357 million, ironically tying with the original theatrical gross of the original Jurassic Park (obviously sans inflation or reissues) back in the summer of 1993. It’s going to pass The Batman ($369 million) sometime this afternoon to become the second-biggest domestic earner of 2022.

We’re probably looking at a $50 million (-44%) third weekend gross, placing it among the ten biggest third-weekend grosses of all time. Of the other nine, eight of them were films that cleared $200 million in their respective opening weekends. The ninth is James Cameron’s Avatar (still tops with a $68 million third-weekend gross following a $77 million debut and a $75 million second weekend). Skydance and Paramount’s legacy sequel should have $393 million domestic after 17 days. That will put days away from passing Marvel and Disney’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($398 million by Sunday night).

After that, it’ll be the biggest domestic earner of 2022 and the second-biggest domestic earner since Disney and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($515 million) in late 2019 behind only Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home ($804 million). Among Tom Cruise flicks, it’ll be just over/under the inflation-adjusted gross of Rain Man ($172 million in 1988/$395 million adjusted) by Sunday night. After which, only Top Gun ($180 million/$440 million) will remain. Oh, and once it gets past $403 million, it will have passed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to be Paramount’s second-biggest domestic earner (sans inflation) behind Titanic ($658 million).

In terms of worldwide totals, presuming a continued 53/47 domestic/overseas split means Top Gun: Maverick is at around $670 million. So, it should A) pass The Batman domestically and B) pass $700 million worldwide sometime today. It could be at around $740 million global tomorrow night, right between F9 ($721 million) and The Batman ($770 million). It’s still possible that the word-of-mouth, popularity among irregular moviegoers and lack of tentpole competition in a movie-lite summer could lead to longer legs than Spider-Man 3 version 2.0. At this point, a “normal” rate of descent gets Top Gun: Maverick to $500 million domestic.

If it holds firm alongside Jurassic World 3 against Lightyear, Minions and Thor: Love and Thunder (along with the older-skewing Elvis), well, James Cameron always thrives as an underdog. This film would have been a winner with a $50 million opening weekend (as opposed to third-weekend gross) and a $160.5 million domestic total (as opposed to a four-day opening weekend), both of which would have been highwater marks for non-Mission: Impossible Tom Cruise flicks over the last 15 years. At this point, legs like Passion of the Christ, American Sniper and Aladdin are starting to look like “at-worst” long-term scenarios.