There are only very few movies to gross more than a billion dollars at the global box office that wasn't made by a Disney-owned company and Top Gun: Maverick is one of them.
Maverick joined rare air (get it?) over the weekend as it soared past Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to become the highest-grossing film of 2022 and the second-most financially successful movie to air during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Also, what's perhaps the most impressive part is that Maverick is the first project that Tom Cruise has ever starred in to make this much money, all but guaranteeing that we're going to see a threequel if not a fourth one in the future.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Maverick is the Paramount's highest-grossing original release in the United States, just behind Titanic, which is getting a remastered re-release for Valentine's Day next year.
While we can't discount Cruise's star power and having two holiday weekends, Maverick's quality and the power of nostalgia are likely the main reasons why it's become such a huge success. Paramount claims that some movie-goers went as far as to watch Maverick three times, which is impressive, to say the least.
It's safe to say that Paramount is on a roll. The film production company was one of the few to remain steadfast in its decision to release films exclusively in theaters and it has paid off dividends for them. It all started with Scream followed by Jackass Forever and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Now, Maverick joins Paramount's growing list of successes this year.
In an ideal world, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One would have aired this year as well. Instead, Cruise's fans will have to wait until July 14, 2023, to watch Cruise again on the big screen as he stars in what many believe will be his penultimate time in the Mission: Impossible franchise.
