Forget about breaking the sound barrier: Tom Cruise has just passed an important stage in his career.
The 59-year-old superstar has just received his first $ 100 million first weekend with “Top Gun: Maverick”. In its first three days in North American theaters, the long-running sequel earned about $ 124 million in ticket sales, Paramount Pictures reported on Sunday. Including international exhibitions, its total amount is 248 million dollars.
This is a supersonic start for a film that still has a wide open sky on Remembrance Day itself to make even more money. According to forecasts and estimates, “Top Gun: Maverick” will probably have over $ 150 million by the end of Monday.
Cruz, while arguably one of the world’s biggest stars – perhaps even the “last movie star”, according to various titles – is not known for his blockbuster mass debuts.
Prior to Maverick, his biggest domestic debut was in 2005 with Steven Spielberg’s $ 64 million War of the Worlds. Then there was “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” with $ 61 million in 2018. Not that his films do not make money in the long run: they are simply not extremely loaded.
The sequel to Tony Scott’s “Top Gun,” which was released in 1986, was originally scheduled to open in the summer of 2020. The pandemic thwarted that plan and was postponed several times. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and co-produced and co-funded by Skydance, the sequel cost $ 152 million.
But while months and years passed and many other companies chose to compromise on hybrid releases, Cruise and Paramount did not hesitate to have a major movie release. Debuting for streaming was simply not an option.
“That would never happen,” Cruz said in Cannes.
And it’s big, with 4,735 North American cinemas (a record) showing “Top Gun: Maverick.” It also opened in 23,600 locations in 62 international markets. The development was equally glaring, with premieres of aircraft carriers in San Diego and the Cannes Film Festival, where Cruz also received an honorary Palme d’Or, and a royal premiere in London, attended by Prince William and his wife Kate.
The reviews were also stellar, with the film scoring 97% of Rotten Tomatoes. The audience, which was 58% male, gave him A + CinemaScore, according to exit polls.
In the new film, Cruz plays Maverick, who returns to the elite aviation training program to train the next generation of pilots, including Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Monica Barbaro, Greg Tarzan Davis, Danny Ramirez, Lewis Pullman and Jay. Ellis. Jennifer Connelly, John Ham and Val Kilmer, who reprise their roles from the original, are also starring.
Maverick is now one of the best openings in the pandemic era, still led by Spider-Man: No Way Home with $ 260 million, followed by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness with $ 187 million and Batman With $ 134 million.
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