Top Gun: Maverick continues to soar.
The decades-anticipated sequel has earned $679 million in North America, as Variety reports, making it the sixth-highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, with $678.8 million in 2018, was consequently knocked down to the No. 7 slot. Forbes writes Top Gun: Maverick (which is at $1.37 billion globally) is expected to gross $5.44M this weekend to take it to a new total of $683M. The next movie in its path is Black Panther ($700.4M, also in 2018), which Variety points out could increase its haul with Disney “likely to re-release” it before the sequel Wakanda Forever on Nov. 11.
The top four highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office are 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens ($936 million), 2019’s Avengers: Endgame ($858.3M), last December’s Spider-Man: No Way Home ($804.7M), and 2009’s Avatar with $760M. It remains to be seen how its 13-years-later sequel Avatar: Way of Water will fare this December, but James Cameron—whose 1997 blockbuster Titanic was just surpassed by Maverick a couple weeks ago—has an extremely formidable track record.
Since its debut back in May, Top Gun: Maverick has collected more than $700 million overseas, performing particularly well in the UK ($95 million), Japan ($82M), and Australia ($60M). Although it was not screened in the China and Russia markets, the film has managed to become the 13th-highest grossing in world history. It’s directed by Joseph Kosinski and stars Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Connelly, and Tom Cruise, who also starred in the original 1986 flick. The second installment marks the first Cruise vehicle to earn at least $100 million in one weekend, and the first to hit the $1 billion mark worldwide.
