Top Gun: Maverick Has Beaten A Huge Marvel Movie
It seems nothing can stop Top Gun: Maverick from smashing box-office record after box-office record and now the MCU is in its sights.
Some movies hit the theaters and “have legs,” which means that it maintains audience interest for longer than the other films released during their run. While some films spend only a few weeks in the cinema, others feel they are on the marquee for an entire summer. This summer has seen many films that could have legs for months. Jurrasic World: Dominion, Thor: Love and Thunder, Lightyear, and Elvis all could have decimated all of their competition. But it was a film bringing back a three-decade-old film for a sequel and pulled on the nostalgic heartstrings of the viewers. Top Gun: Maverick released Memorial Day weekend and is still available in some theaters as it continues to climb the domestic box office list. The climb has taken it to heights only seen by a handful of other films, passing a huge Marvel success.
As reported by Variety, Top Gun: Maverick rose to the sixth highest domestic box office seller. Its total box office gross of nearly $700 million was enough for it to overtake the spot from Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, the first in the double feature finishing the 20+ movie making up the Infinity Saga. Marvel isn’t lacking in films in the top ten of all time; three of the five above Top Gun: Maverick are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Black Panther. Rounding out the top five are Avatar at number four and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The film has already risen above the rest of the top ten in Titanic, Jurassic World, and Avengers.
It is no secret why the film has been doing so well. Along with the fits of nostalgia the film elicits, it is a movie that registers well with both audiences and critics. The film scored a 96% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences agreed with them by achieving a 99%. The film accomplished something truly difficult to do in Hollywood. It took an older franchise with a dedicated and almost fanatical fanbase and brought it back to life to the acclaim of both parties. Tom Cruise felt like the same character thirty years later, and the parallel of an aging pilot holding on to a dying dogfighting skill spoke to those fans who saw the original in 1986 and feel the world is a different place.
The summer blockbuster has become a staple for moviegoers to escape the summer heat, and studios have responded by releasing the biggest films of the year during those months. Last year saw the long-awaited Black Widow. Historically, films like Independence Day, The Dark Knight, The Lion King, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 keep audiences entertained during the summer months when school is out. Top Gun: Maverick not only took older audiences back to their childhood summer of 1986, but it became the first billion-dollar movie for Tom Cruise. If his legacy in Hollywood hadn’t already been decided, this film solidified him in the halls of the greatest to ever grace our screens.
