We might not even be halfway through 2022 yet, but we can already end the conversation regarding the most successful blockbuster of the year, with Tom Cruise and Top Gun: Maverick blowing the competition clean out of the water and into the sky patrolled by Pete Mitchell and his cohorts.
Of course, there will be other movies that make more money by the time we reach December 31, but few (if any) of them will break anywhere near as many box office records as Joseph Kosinski’s sequel, and we’d be willing to bet that none of them will find anything approaching the same levels of critical acclaim.
Maverick might be in its fifth weekend of release, but it could yet end up topping the box office yet again, even if Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is currently edging ahead in the battle to secure number one. As per the latest projections, the biopic of the King is on course for a three-day haul somewhere in the $31 million range, but Top Gun 2 is breathing right down its neck with an estimated $30 million weekend.
It would arguably be Maverick‘s finest achievement yet were it to return to the summit almost a month after first exploding into multiplexes everywhere, but one thing that is absolutely guaranteed to happen is the billion-dollar threshold being blown past in no time at all, with Cruise’s return to the cockpit sitting on a global tally of $918 million heading into the weekend.
Elvis might win the battle, then, but Top Gun: Maverick has already won the war.