Box Office: Why ‘Top Gun 2’ Could Be the First Tom Cruise Movie to Join the $1B Club
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Nothing short of astonishment swept across Hollywood over the June 3-5 weekend when Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick dropped a mere 29 percent from its Memorial Day launch thanks to spectacular word of mouth.
That’s the lowest decline in history for a movie opening to $100 million or more, and a slim decline for any movie, according to Comscore. A decline of 50 percent would have been considered excellent, or even 55 percent. The bigger a Hollywood tentpole opens, the more inclined it is to drop 60 percent or more.
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Take Marvel and Disney’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which in its fifth weekend on Sunday became the first film of 2022 to cross the $900 million mark at the worldwide box office despite falling 67 percent in its sophomore outing.
So what does this all mean? For the first time in his four-decade career, Tom Cruise, 59, has a movie that has a real shot at joining the billion-dollar club at the global box office. At the very least, it will ultimately become his highest-grossing film, not adjusted for inflation. And the $170 million film is already a profit-maker for the studio.
In its first 10 days, Paramount and Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick — fueled by moviegoers of all ages and a coveted A+ CinemaScore — has earned an estimated $295.6 million in North America and $261.6 million worldwide for a global total of $557.2 million.
“To have this kind of success at this point in his career is amazing,” says a rival studio executive.
Box office sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Top Gun 2 is destined to gross north of $900 million globally, including $500 million or more in North America. They say the only reason it may not get to $1 billion is the absence of a China and Russia release.
Cruise’s biggest film worldwide is Mission: Impossible — Fallout, which collected $571.5 million overseas for a worldwide total of $791 million in 2018. Top Gun 2 will also pass up 2011’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol ($694.7 million), 2015’s Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation ($682.7 million) and 2005’s The War of the Worlds ($603 million).
On Saturday, Top Gun: Maverick became Cruise’s top-grossing film domestically when it passed up War of the Worlds ($243.3 million). That’s after zooming past the first Top Gun ($180.3 million) and Mission: Impossible — Fallout ($220.2 million). Internationally, Top Gun: Maverick is already well ahead of the $176 million earned by the first Top Gun.
Top Gun: Maverick could prove a huge boost for the next Mission: Impossible movie, Dead Reckoning, Part One. Paramount and Skydance open the film on July 14, 2023. “Top Gun 2 has introduced a whole new generation to Tom Cruise,” says the source. It’s a wise observation.
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