The pandemic has hit cinemas hard over the last couple of years, but if anyone could save the theatrical experience it was always going to be Tom Cruise. Well, looks like the action movie star has only gone and done it, as his latest movie Top Gun: Maverick has hit $1 billion at the box-office, making it the first Tom Cruise movie to do so.
Top Gun 2, the legacy sequel to the ‘80s movie, swooped out of nowhere to become the biggest box-office hit of 2022 and has well and truly brought the masses back to the cinema. The high-octane thriller movie stars Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, and Jon Hamm, among others, and follows veteran fighter pilot Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell as he leads a team of young recruits on a dangerous mission.
Believe it or not, no Tom Cruise movie had ever hit a billion dollars before, until Top Gun 2 came along and smashed it at the box-office. It’s no surprise really, as audiences and critics alike have praised the movie, with our Top Gun 2 review calling it “electrifying”.
With a career like Cruise’s, which includes the blockbuster Mission: Impossible franchise, you’d be forgiven for thinking he had joined the billion-dollar club a long time ago. Yet, that particular feat was still sitting on his bucket list, until now.
Top Gun: Maverick now becomes only the second movie of the pandemic era to break $1 billion at the box-office, joining the MCU movie Spider-Man: No Way Home in that most elite group.
Despite being in theatres for five weeks now, Top Gun 2 has been riding the wave of word of mouth and has defied the odds with its record-breaking run. The movie has seen some of the lowest drop-offs ever, meaning audiences are still flocking to see it.
It seems repeat viewings could be the key to this success. According to the movie studio Paramount, more than 16% of Top Gun 2′s audience has seen the film more than once, and 4% have seen it four times or more.
It’s great to see viewers readily heading into the danger zone and enjoying the big screen experience so much again. If you want to watch Top Gun 2, we highly recommend finding the biggest, loudest screen you can.