Top Gun: Maverick Collects $900 Million at the Global Box Office
The biggest success story of the year is Top Gun: Maverick. While Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Batman was always expected to do well at the box office, Maverick’s record-breaking performance was far from certain, given the first film’s shaky cultural significance, the nearly four-decade gap between the two installments, and star Tom Cruise’s box office pull outside of the Mission: Impossible franchise. However, four weeks after its debut, Maverick is the largest domestic blockbuster of the year, the biggest smash of Cruise’s career, and the second-biggest film in Paramount’s history. With almost $473 million in the bank in the United States, nearly $900 million globally, and a South Korean release on the way, Forbes predicts that the picture will break the $1 billion mark worldwide, a first for Cruise’s long and illustrious career.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the star’s previous highest-grossing film, grossed $791 million worldwide in 2018. In the previous decade, Cruise has primarily focused on franchise pictures; the only exceptions are Rock of Ages (which feels like it came out a long time ago), Oblivion, and American Made. Cruise has set up a lovely little late-period bout with himself, with two additional Mission: Impossible films planned for release in 2023 and 2024.
Maverick only dropped 15% in its fourth weekend in the United States, grossing $44 million, which is the third-highest fourth weekend total ever. Avatar and American Sniper were the two films that performed better, albeit the latter was expanding after a limited run. It made $39 million in international sales over the weekend. The film’s top regions in its fourth weekend were Japan ($5.4 million, $42.8 total), the United Kingdom ($5.1 million, $71.5 total), and Australia ($4.8 million, $40.1 total), followed by France, Brazil, and Germany. Weekend-to-weekend improvements were observed in Malaysia and Singapore. If Maverick continues to perform conservatively, it will finish with a domestic total of $550 million, putting it on track for a $600 million finish.
Maverick is proving to be the leggiest $100 million-plus opening ever, already exceeding Star Wars: The Force Awakens by that criterion and looking to overtake Wonder Woman and Shrek 2 soon, as one might anticipate from a Cruise product. Maverick is the archetypal four-quadrant hit, and it was an easy pick for Father’s Day.
