Top Gun: Maverick was already the biggest movie of Tom Cruise’s career by just about every conceivable metric. It set box office records making it not only the biggest movie of the year but the biggest movie of Cruise’s career. And somehow the movie is still setting box office records, because it’s actually still in theaters, at least in Japan.
Top Gun: Maverick just had its one-year anniversary of screening in Japanese cinemas. On its 365th day in theaters, Deadline reports it became the highest-grossing movie of Cruise’s career in Japan, overtaking 2003’s The Last Samurai, which did $101.5 million. This record also makes Japan the second-biggest international market for Maverick. Apparently, the movie got a boost from its award season run, going back into wide release following Maverick's Oscar nominations, and the film has just stayed there ever since, continuing to bring in the box office.
As with many other territories Top Gun: Maverick is available to be viewed at home digitally, but I guess because the big screen experience is such a benefit to the film, people have continued to go to the theater and check it out. The movie is only a couple of million dollars behind the UK’s total box office of $103.5 million, and one certainly wonders if Japan could become the top international territory for Top Gun: Maverick before the movie finishes this last run.
One also has to wonder if Top Gun: Maverick will still be in theaters when Tom Cruise’s next movie, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part One, arrives in theaters. The movie is set to open in Japan on July 21, a bit after its July 12 domestic release. Will the new Mission: Impossible be the movie that finally ends Maverick’s box office run in Japan or will both movies be available in theaters?
Needless to say, a one-year theatrical run is impressive regardless of the box office numbers. The modern blockbuster scene has things so front-loaded that most movies have done whatever business they are going to do in the first couple of weeks. Movies like Avatar: The Way of Water, or yes, Top Gun: Maverick can be so big that their box office time becomes significant, but even Maverick, which saw more than one “re-release" in theaters in its time domestically, didn’t have the legs that the Top Gun movie is having in Japan.
Following the global pandemic, the time that a movie spends in theaters has been even more rushed, with many films seemingly arriving on streaming platforms as soon as contracts allow. Top Gun: Maverick took its time going to streaming just as it waited to be released in theaters when the time was right and we continue to see new indications that was the right call.
Maverick was clearly doing enough business to justify its space in the Japanese multiplex even a year after release. Even if that wasn’t a massive amount of money, it’s just another example of this film’s incredible success, which clearly isn’t limited to American audiences.
