The original Top Gun didn’t have a huge opening. Indeed, the top grossing film of 1986 was a word-of-mouth hit, staying in theaters for months, simply because people really, really enjoyed it. (And thanks to a soundtrack that kept cranking out hits, like the one accompanying its iconic/ridiculous volleyball scene.) That longevity seems to be repeating itself 36 years later. Indeed, in its fifth weekend in release, Top Gun: Maverick returned to the top of the box office in a very close tie with the biopic Elvis.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, both the belated follow-up and the latest from director Baz Luhrmann grossed around $30.5 million. Box Office Mojo has Top Gun 2 grossing a smidgeon more, with $30,500,176 to Elvis’ $30,500,000. Those numbers may change slightly by Monday, but even if it remains a tie, it’s impressive for any movie nowadays to continue Hoovering up this much money over a month into its release.
The second Top Gun also achieved another milestone: It crossed the $1 billion line globally, with over half of it coming from the United States alone. On top of that, it also returned to select IMAX screens, which surely helped it dip a mere 32% domestically from the previous week. So kudos to the little movie that execs wanted to dump onto streaming during the pandemic, a plan thwarted by star Tom Cruise, who will now get a very, very nice paycheck.
(Via THR)