Top Gun: Maverick landed as the “movie of the summer” with a 14-week streak after surpassing $1.4 billion at the global box office. On Saturday, the blockbuster Legacy sequel achieved the desired milestone, becoming just the sixth movie in history to do so. In just a few hours, it will surpass Black Panther’s $700.42 million lifetime earnings to move up to the fifth-largest position among domestic releases.
The sequel to the 1986 hit Top Gun starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, produced by Paramount Pictures, shot to the 12th spot on the list of all-time highest-grossing films. Top Gun 2 has earned $692 million domestically since its May 27 exclusive release in theatres, surpassing Titanic from Paramount and Avengers: Infinity War from Marvel as the sixth-best domestic grosser. Top Gun 2 also broke the Memorial Day opening record.
According to sources, Top Gun: Maverick enjoyed a three-month hot streak as the biggest release since Spider-Man: No Way Home in December, topping sales charts on the last day of May and August. The Joseph Kosinski-directed Top Gun sequel earned $160.5 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend in late May, crushing Disney’s 2007 Pirates of the Caribbean.
Maverick will fall behind Avatar ($760 million), Spider-Man: No Way Home ($812 million), Avengers: Endgame ($858 million), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936 million) on the all-time list, assuming it surpasses Black Panther shortly. Surprisingly, the sole adult-skewing title in the group is Maverick. Maverick is now rated 12th on the global ranking. It is now lagging behind Jurassic World ($1.671 billion), The Avengers ($1.518 billion), Frozen II ($1.45 billion), Furious 7 ($1.516 billion), and The Lion King remake ($1.656 billion).
Joseph Kosinski is the director of Maverick, which was released 36 years after the first Top Gun. The 1986 original, which Tony Scott directed, reportedly cost $15 million to make but ended up grossing $357 million worldwide. In the follow-up, Pete Mitchell, played by Cruise, returns to reflect on his own legacy and prepare a crew of inexperienced pilots for a perilous mission. Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Danny Ramirez, Monica Barbaro, Manny Jacinto, and Val Kilmer are among the other actors who appear in the movie.