“Top Gun: Maverick” has the box office sizzling… again.
In its second weekend of release, the long-awaited sequel filmed partially in San Diego collected a sensational $86 million from 4,751 North American theaters. Those returns rank among the top 10 highest-grossing second weekends in domestic box office history.
Pandemic times or not, the Paramount and Skydance release is eclipsing significant box office milestones at record speed. After only 10 days on the big screen, “Top Gun: Maverick” has generated $291 million in North America and $548.6 million globally.
Thanks to positive word of mouth, rapturous reviews and premium screens, ticket sales for “Top Gun: Maverick” dropped only 32% from its $160 million debut over the long Memorial Day holiday weekend. It’s the smallest second-weekend decline for a movie that opened to $100 million or more, according to Comscore. That’s an especially impressive benchmark — even for a reviewed movie — because blockbusters, like “Maverick,” tend to be front-loaded and drop at least 50% after opening weekend. By comparison, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” each declined 67% in its sophomore outing, while Robert Pattinson’s “The Batman” fell 50% in its second weekend and “Eternals” plunged 62%.
“Top Gun: Maverick” has already become Cruise’s highest-grossing film ever at the domestic box office, overtaking the record previously held by 2005’s “War of the Worlds” ($243 million).
“It has never been more appropriate to say ‘the sky’s the limit’ for ‘Top Gun: Maverick,'” Paramount’s president of domestic distribution Chris Aronson wrote in a note to press.
Few films wanted to compete with “Maverick” for eyeballs, though director David Cronenberg’s body horror film “Crimes of the Future” opened in limited release. From Neon, the movie launched to $1.1 million from 773 theaters, translating to a decent $1,423 per location. Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux and Kristen Stewart star in the gruesome “Crimes of the Future,” which premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Without any new releases from major studios, “Top Gun: Maverick” enjoyed free rein over North American box office charts. Holdovers titles “Doctor Strange” sequel, “The Bob’s Burgers Movie,” “The Bad Guys” and “Downton Abby: A New Era” took spots two through five.
Reuters contributed to this article.