‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Overtakes ‘Doctor Strange 2’ as the Highest-Grossing Movie of the Year Globally

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the $170 million budgeted Top Gun: Maverick, follows Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell as he prepares a new crew of arrogant pilots for an important mission. Glen Powell, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Connelly, and Val Kilmer, who portrayed Iceman in the first Top Gun film, are among the cast members.

The film extends Paramount’s record-breaking box office run in 2022. After scarcely releasing any films during the epidemic, the studio has found success with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($190 million in North America), The Lost City ($105 million in North America), Scream ($81 million in North America), and Jackass Forever ($57 million in North America).

‘Top Gun: Maverick’ tops the global box office

Prior to this weekend, the sequel to the 1986 action film Top Gun had already surpassed the $521 million mark at the US box office. Now in its fifth weekend, Maverick has added $30.5 million and is vying for the top spot on the domestic box office charts with newcomer Elvis.

With another $484.7 million at the international box office, Maverick has now grossed a whopping $1.006 billion globally. These ticket sales were sufficient to surpass Disney’s Marvel adventure, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($943 million) as the year’s highest-grossing film at the global box office.

Since opening in theatres over Memorial Day weekend, Top Gun: Maverick has broken box office records. Thanks to critical acclaim and stellar word-of-mouth. During the extended holiday weekend, the film grossed $160.5 million, making it the first film in Cruise’s 40-year career to earn more than $100 million in a single weekend.

According to Paramount, repeat customers and Imax screens, have been fueling momentum in the weeks since the film’s theatrical debut. By the fourth weekend in North American movie theatres, 16% of the audience had returned more than once, and 4% had returned three times or more.

It is the first film of the year and only the second in COVID history (following Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home with $1.9 billion). It’s even more impressive that Maverick surpassed the $1 billion mark without ever having played in China or Russia, two major markets.