Tom Cruise: sequel to “Top Gun” sweeps the box office at its premiere

“Top Gun: Maverick”, the sequel to the 1980s classic, recorded one of the best openings in recent years in US theaters this weekend, grossing 160 million dollars, the best debut in the career of Tom Cruise.

The good performance of the film, which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival, has been supported by excellent reviews and a strategic release date: the weekend in which the United States celebrates Memorial Day and which has the Monday as a holiday throughout the country.

Thus, in just four days and adding what was collected in other markets, the Paramount+ studio has managed to recover its investment of more than 170 million in the filmstarring Cruise and directed by architect Joseph Kosinski (“Tron: Legacy”).

The sequel, which comes 36 years after the premiere of the original film, has far surpassed the premiere of “Top Gun” in 1986, which only entered 8 million dollars in its first weekend, according to records from the Box Office portal. Mojo.

“I saw the first film when I was a kid, 12 years old, and I was very impressed with Tony Scott’s style but I also knew that I had to make it my own. That I had to take the story into the future and not look back.” affirmed the filmmaker in a recent interview with Efe.

Action and superhero franchises have proven to be the infallible remedy for theaters, deeply affected by the closure during the pandemic.

So far this year, “Top Gun: Maverick” is the fourth-biggest opening, behind “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (260 million), “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (187 million) and “The Batman” (134 million in a normal weekend).

The rest of the weekend’s box office in the US was dominated by “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (20 million dollars in its fourth week), “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” (14 million in its opening) , “Downton Abbey: A New Era” (7 million in its second week) and “The Bad Guys” (5 million in its sixth week).