Tom Cruise isn’t done, and big-budget films without spandex-clad superheroes aren’t either. Top Gun: Maverick earned Cruise a career-high $248 million worldwide, outperforming his previous best – Mission: Impossible – Fallout by 28%. This weekend, the action sequel debuted in 62 worldwide regions, grossing $124 million by Sunday. Maverick grossed an additional $124 million in its three-day domestic premiere, with forecasts for the extended Memorial Day weekend at $151 million.
Top Gun: Maverick earned Cruise his highest opening in 32 of the aforementioned markets, while 18 of those markets gave Paramount their biggest live-action debut. After Transformers: Age of Extinction, Top Gun: Maverick is the studio’s second-best international live-action debut. Though Transformers: Dark of the Moon grossed more by the conclusion of its first weekend, the picture did not release for previews until Tuesday.
Maverick is Paramount’s fifth box office triumph of the year, following Scream, Jackass Forever, The Lost City, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. This is an incredible comeback for the company, which was struggling recently with a change in leadership and was forced to offload numerous titles to streaming during the epidemic. The studio showed trust in the film by not rushing it out during limited release periods in recent years, instead sending Cruise on a world-wide press tour that took him to San Diego, Cannes, London, and Tokyo. Top Gun: Maverick arrived with a perfect A+ CinemaScore, some of Cruise’s best reviews, and the entire summer ahead of it.
Even a modest 2X multiplier would place Maverick at $600 million worldwide by the conclusion of its life, and this is a reasonable estimate. If Maverick continues to be the summer’s top pick for adults (with the kind of legs that Cruise’s flicks are known for), it could have a shot at $1 billion. Surprisingly, this excludes the Chinese and Russian markets. With $19.4 million, the United Kingdom was the largest international market. France took second place internationally with $11.7 million, followed by Australia with $10.7 million, Japan with $9.7 million, and Germany with $6.5 million.
The first picture, directed by the late Tony Scott, grossed $176 million domestically in 1986, which corresponds to about $420 million today. If Maverick has a 3X multiplier, it will end up with roughly the same amount. The film is directed by Joseph Kosinski, whose previous feature, Spiderhead, will be released on Netflix in June.