Tom Cruise is unquestionably one of the biggest movie stars of all time, but one career milestone that has evaded him has been making a movie with a $100 million opening weekend. The Mission: Impossible movies are obviously popular, but the the biggest among them is Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which made $61.2 million in its first three days back in 2018, and his biggest non-franchise film, Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, began its theatrical run by making $64.9 million.
Now, however, the actor can check that particular item off his To-Do List. Since premiering in theaters on Thursday night, Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick has put up spectacular numbers, and its now on track to be Tom Cruise's biggest hit ever. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Top Gun: Maverick* | $124,000,000 | $124,000,000 | Row 0 - Cell 3 | 4,735 |
| 2. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness | $16,400,000 | $370,773,979 | 1 | 3,805 |
| 3. The Bob’s Burgers Movie* | $12,600,000 | $12,600,000 | Row 2 - Cell 3 | 3,425 |
| 4. Downton Abbey: A New Era | $5,900,000 | $28,478,945 | 2 | 3,830 |
| 5. The Bad Guys | $4,630,000 | $81,372,900 | 3 | 2,944 |
| 6. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 | $2,520,000 | $185,139,326 | 4 | 2,900 |
| 7. Everything Everywhere All At Once | $2,510,345 | $56,823,987 | 6 | 1,187 |
| 8. The Lost City | $1,795,000 | $101,732,000 | 9 | 1,027 |
| 9. Men | $1,224,692 | $5,967,784 | 5 | 2,196 |
| 10. Firestarter | $285,000 | $8,116,865 | 7 | 999 |
Top Gun: Maverick Has The Third Biggest Opening Weekend Of 2022 Thus Far
Your eyes do not deceive you. Top Gun: Maverick made twice as much money as Mission: Impossible - Fallout did in the same amount of time. The new blockbuster is only the third feature to bring in nine-figures in ticket sales thus far in 2022, with the opening weekend total ranking behind only Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (which earned $187 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday at the start of this month) and Matt Reeves' The Batman (which made $134 million when it began its theatrical run in early March).
When you compare the number to the performance of Tony Scott's original (not accounting for inflation, of course), the results are rather comical. The original Top Gun, which hit theaters in 1986 and was a huge hit, made just $8.2 million in its first weekend, playing in 1,028 theaters – according to The Numbers. It was definitely a slow start for what it would ultimately do, as it ended up staying in theaters for eight months after its released domestically, its global box office total (including re-releases) stands at $357.5 million.
There's obviously no questioning the original Top Gun's success, but all signs point to Top Gun: Maverick blowing it out of the sky by the time it is done playing on the big screen. The question mark in the equation is how the film will perform internationally. If it's able to match its predecessor and achieve something close to a 1:1 ratio between domestic and overseas grosses, there exists a possibility that the movie could make north of $700 million.
Those who have been anticipating the release of Top Gun: Maverick will note that we've had to wait an extra long time for this movie's release. In early March 2020, Paramount had the blockbuster scheduled to come out on June 24, 2020... but then the pandemic started. Tom Cruise insisted that the film go to theaters and not streaming, and because he got his wish, fans have spent an extra two years chomping at the bit for it.
In that sense, the film's success isn't terribly surprising – plus there are a number of other factors that suggested that the movie would be a hit. Positive buzz has been swirling since social media reactions to the movie arrived online back in late April, and only more positivity came pouring out when Top Gun: Maverick reviews were published in mid-May. There has been a lot of excitement developing for this one, and that's now reflected in the opening weekend ticket sales.
The big bonus? This weekend isn't over. It's not hard to imagine that a fair number of people will spend the Memorial Day holiday tomorrow heading to their local cinema to check out a new movie, and it's a fair bet that a lot of them are going to be going to see Tom Cruise fly jets in Top Gun: Maverick.
Despite Heavy Competition, The Bob's Burgers Movie Still Brings In Customers
In this day and age, when two big titles open against each other during the same weekend and one of them makes north of $100 million, that usually means that the other one is left picking of scraps. That, however, is not the narrative that's in play for Loren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman's The Bob's Burgers Movie. Based on the popular, long-running Fox animated sitcom, the film made $12.6 million in an impressive showing.
That's obviously not much of a number when you put it next to the earnings of Top Gun: Maverick, and it doesn't compare favorably to the opening weekend of David Silverman's The Simpsons Movie (which made $74 million in 2007), but it's a modest success. That haul is the sixteenth biggest Friday-to-Sunday total earned by any movie domestically thus far in 2022, as it opened bigger than Robert Eggers' The Northman, Roland Emmerich's Moonfall, and Michael Bay's Ambulance.
The Bob's Burgers Movie is another title that has earned positive responses from critics, and it's earned an "A" grade from CinemaScore survey-takers, and it may end up being a title that sticks around in the bottom half of the Top 10 for a good chunk of the summer season.
Channing Tatum And Sandra Bullock Can Celebrate, As The Lost City Crosses $100 Million Domestically
Speaking of movies that have hung around in the bottom half of the Top 10, Adam and Aaron Nee's The Lost City should inspire some champagne popping of its own at Paramount Pictures while the studio celebrates the success of Top Gun: Maverick. The romantic comedy starring Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock hung on to ninth place this weekend, but what's important is that the $1.8 million that it earned has pushed the film's domestic total over $100 million. It's made $174.8 million internationally thus far.
For Channing Tatum, The Lost City is the thirteenth film to earn nine figures in the United States and Canada. For Sandra Bullock, it's number eleven.
Looking ahead to next week, the runway looks clear for Top Gun: Maverick to dominate once again, as the biggest new features in wide theatrical release will be David Cronenberg's Crimes Of The Future, and Chloe Okuno's Sundance horror film Watcher starring Maika Monroe. Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how the Top 10 gets shaken up, and check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to get a preview of all the big titles set to come out in the weeks and months ahead.
