There is no stopping Top Gun: Maverick and the film is continuing to give Paramount Pictures a reason to celebrate an already stellar year for the studio. Normally films coming off big opening weekends and a holiday tend to have steeper drops in week 2 but not Top Gun: Maverick. In fact, the Top Gun sequel has the best second-weekend drop for a wide release opening over $100 million.
Top Gun: Maverick eased a pretty slim 32% this weekend to gross $86 million. The film is now officially Tom Cruise’s biggest movie on the domestic front and its performance is nothing short of amazing. For comparison’s sake, Star Wars: The Force Awakens declined 40% in its second weekend back in December of 2015 and Shrek 2 dipped 33% in week 2 back in 2004.
Per Deadline, via EntTelligence, 6.5 million moviegoers came out for Top Gun: Maverick this weekend which brings its running admission count to 22 million people. This is a matter of repeat business and casual moviegoers who gave the film a chance after hearing about how great it is. The sequel is also playing very broadly. This isn’t just fans of the 1986 movie coming out to reunite with Maverick. It’s attracting a wide range of demographics. 38% of the crowd was over 45 while the 25-34 crowd is coming in at 24% with 45-54-year-old moviegoers representing 20%.
The film also benefitted from zero competition this weekend and it will be interesting to see how it holds next weekend when Jurassic World: Dominion opens. It’s possible that Top Gun: Maverick will hold its own against Chris Pratt and the dinosaurs because we really haven’t seen word of mouth like this for a traditional blockbuster without the Marvel label in a long time. As it stands, Top Gun: Maverick has a running domestic total of $291.6 million and after grossing an additional $81.7 million from overseas markets, the film has a global tally of $548.6 million.
As expected, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness maintains second place with a gross of $9.3 million. That’s a decline of 42% and it should be noted that Doctor Strange hasn’t seen a decline of 50% or more since opening and that’s even with competition from Top Gun: Maverick. Not easy to do when two blockbusters are in play and I honestly think it shows people are just excited to get back to movies and are spreading the wealth. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness now brings its domestic total to $388.7 million and a mighty $909.4 million worldwide without major players like China or Russia in play.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie remains in third place this weekend with a gross of $4.5 million. That’s a steep decline of 64% but it was kind of expected because the fanbase of the show came out for it last weekend and it’s playing to a rather niche audience. To date, The Bob’s Burgers Movie has grossed $22.2 million at the domestic box office.
Still maintaining a position in the top five is The Bad Guys, which placed fourth this weekend with a gross of $3.3 million in its seventh weekend of release. That’s another slim drop of 24% as the film continues to lure in kids and families. To date, The Bad Guys has grossed $87.2 million at the domestic box office to date.
Rounding out the top five is Downton Abbey: A New Era, which grossed $3 million over the weekend. That’s a decline of 48% as the film hasn’t really broken out beyond its target audience which didn’t come out for this sequel as they did for its predecessor. The film has grossed $35.7 million domestically to date and I’m guessing it will stall slightly below or right at $40 million, which was the production budget for the film.
While Top Gun: Maverick had the marketplace to itself, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future opened in limited release in about 773 theaters for a gross of $1.1 million. That’s a per-theater average of $1,423 which is decent but not groundbreaking either. The film played well in big cities but Deadline reports the grosses diminished once they started tracking smaller cities. Cronenberg isn’t really known for big box office so this result isn’t all that surprising but it will be interesting to see how it performs once it opens wide.
What are YOUR thoughts on this weekend’s box office results?
