Considering Tom Cruise has been the lead star of some pretty big movies over the last four decades, Top Gun: Maverick could well give him his biggest opening box office of his career. Despite having some of the biggest movies of the last decade, including several big Mission: Impossible movies, Cruise’s highest opening weekend haul to date was a domestic debut of $64.8 million for 2005’s War of the Worlds. Based on the latest predictions detailed in The Hollywood Reporter, it looks like Top Gun: Maverick could give him his biggest domestic box office opening by a long way.
Legacy sequels are hit-and-miss, with some managing to reignite interest in long-dormant franchises and others ending up tarnishing the previous movies. Top Gun’s reviews were never unanimously positive, so when it came to a sequel there was a very strong risk of history repeating itself. However, following the first reviews of the movie it is clear that not only is Top Gun: Maverick a better film than the original, but is also a very good movie full stop, currently sitting on a 97% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes.
Latest predictions suggest that Top Gun: Maverick will hit cinemas over Memorial Day weekend to deliver a $90 million plus domestic box office minimum, with many expecting it to break the $100 million and possibly even push $125 million in some analysis. That would put it among the biggest movies of the year, sitting under only Doctor Strange 2 and The Batman. A strong opening weekend, and a continuing stream of good reviews and word of mouth could mean that Top-Gun: Maverick could also find itself attempting to topple Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as the highest-grossing movie of the year so far.
Top Gun: Maverick is Being Hailed as The Best Legacy Sequel Ever
Recent years have seen a huge increase in legacy sequels to some much-loved franchises. These have included Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Matrix: Resurrections, but many are already putting Top Gun: Maverick at the top of the heap when it comes to these movie franchise revivals. With near-perfect scores and a big box office predicted, it is hard to argue with those comments.
The official synopsis for Top Gun: Maverick reads: "After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: 'Rooster,' the son of Maverick's late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka 'Goose.' Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it."