Paramount Pictures' Top Gun: Maverick cannot be stopped. The sequel to 1986's Top Gun has just reached another major box office record and in the process, has flown past the box office totals of two recent Disney blockbuster films.
According to box office analyst Gitesh Pandya on Twitter, Top Gun: Maverick earned $29.6 million at the domestic box office in its fifth weekend in theaters. Only two other films have earned more in their fifth weekend at the domestic box office and they were both directed by James Cameron. Avatar (2009) made $42.8 million while Titanic (1997) made $30 million, which means that Maverick only needed to have earned $400 thousand more to take second place. Maverick might not have been able to overtake Cameron's previous blockbuster hits, but the 2022 film did earn more in its fifth weekend than 2018's Black Panther ($26.7 million) and 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($26.3 million) did back in 2018 and 2016 respectively.
Despite beating Black Panther and Star Wars: The Force Awakens' fifth weekends, Top Gun: Maverick still has some catching up to do if the film hopes to pass the Disney blockbuster films' worldwide totals. Maverick currently sits at $1.006 billion while Black Panther and The Force Awakens finished their runs with $1.35 billion and $2.07 billion, respectively. Luckily for Paramount and Maverick star Tom Cruise, the sequel shows no signs of slowing down and continues to perform above expectations at the box office, thanks to strong ticket sales and word of mouth from audiences. The Top Gun sequel recently passed Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness at the worldwide box office to become the current highest-grossing movie worldwide of 2022.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick picks up more than 30 years after the original film and stars Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, one of the Navy's top aviators. The sequel follows Maverick as he trains a new group of TOPGUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen. The film also stars Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman and Ed Harris. Val Kilmer also appears in a cameo, reprising his role from the first film as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky.
Top Gun: Maverick is currently playing in theaters. A streaming premiere date on Paramount+ for the film has not yet been set.
Source: Twitter