Yahoo Movies ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Scorches ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End’ For Memorial Day Opening Record With $160M+ – Tuesday AM Update
TUESDAY AM UPDATE: The Tom Cruise Paramount/Skydance sequel goes to an even higher stratosphere with a 4-day $160.5M Memorial Day opening record. Global is at a $300M start. Important to note that given the whole thing of rolling the $13.2M Thursday previews of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End into its opening weekend, that movie still has the 3-day over Memorial Day weekend with $127.97M to Top Gun: Maverick‘s $126.7M.
MONDAY AM UPDATE: Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick has beaten Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End fair and square for the Memorial Day opening 4-day record (+ previews) at the domestic box office with $156M. While easily Tom Cruise’s best opening of all-time, producer Jerry Bruckheimer is the common denominator of the two largest Memorial Day weekend openings at the domestic box office.
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Disney
At World’s End’s four-day holiday opening of $139.8M was further puffed by Thursday previews which got that third Pirates to a $153M stateside start, a Memorial Day record Disney held for the last 15 years. No more, those bragging rights go to Paramount now. Over the weekend, debate raged on as to whether those $13.2M At World’s End previews (which reportedly started at 8PM) should be included in that pic’s 4-day opening; that gross was recorded at a time before studios began rolling previews into their weekend openings. Forever, Box Office Mojo and Comscore showed At World’s End with a 4-day start of $139.8M. Mojo separated out that $13.2M At World’s End previews into a separate Thursday opening day, while Comscore rolled that amount into At World’s End’s seven-day gross — not its opening, capisce? However, given how previews have been included in these blockbuster openings of late, it only made sense to measure this race by an apples-to-apples slide rule.
Top Gun: Maverick made $36.7M yesterday, -3% from its $38M Saturday. The three-day stands at $126.7M, which is still second best among Friday-Sunday starts for Paramount after Iron Man 2 ($128.1M).
EntTelligence reports that 11.6M moviegoers have seen Top Gun 2 to date, which is third biggest attendance during the pandemic era (since Q2 2020) after Spider-Man: No Way Home (20.6M) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (14M) for an opening weekend.
Speaking of Paramount, that studio is on a dynamite upswing this year. Top Gun 2 is the studio’s 5th No. 1 opening of 2022 after Scream, Jackass Forever, The Lost City and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a slate built on robust diversity of winning product. Not a lot of studios can exclaim that (sorry, Universal. Despite all your smart co-financing, your diverse product outside of Bad Guys, hasn’t been winning). With Top Gun 2, Paramount flies to $585M for 2022, which will make it the No. 1 studio at the domestic box office.
Many know that Top Gun 2 was put into the Paramount pipeline during the Jim G era, however, we need to raise a glass to Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins for not falling prey to the industry’s seduction of streaming, and taking what was always a prized tentpole and going day-and-date with it on Paramount+. Waiting is everything, and the hopscotching of Top Gun 2 around the calendar –at one point Independence Day 2021, then Thanksgiving last year, and then now– has truly paid off. The Tom Cruise sequel was always meant to be paired with the hot weather season and barbeque. It’s a lesson to all you major studios inebriated on streaming that theatrical is king and such assets for the big screen should be protected. Now, Paramount has a major franchise they can move forward on. Bruckheimer tells Deadline this morning that a third film isn’t being discussed yet, “we’re enjoying this one; let’s ride this wave.” However, it’s a no-brainer that Paramount wants a third Top Gun film.
Warner Bros.
Speaking of the flyover states success here on Top Gun 2, Midwest chain B&B Theatres dropped Deadline a note that their 513-plus screen chain overperformed by 47% on Top Gun 2. Not all chains can claim that from the data Deadline has seen; i.e. AMC, despite being tops for the weekend). Regal Theaters overperformed with Top Gun 2 by 14%. As studios wonder how to build and rally with a slate of product outside of tentpole movies appealing to various demos, they should recognize the potential and underserved nature of the red state crowd. Top Gun 2 is arguably the first red state movie since 2014’s American Sniper to propel older audiences, who typically don’t go to the movies in these parts of the country, to attend. There was a point in time, before the explosion of the offshore marketplace, and the 1980s blockbuster era, that all Hollywood did was make movies for audiences between NY and LA, i.e. Smokey and the Bandit ($126.7M), American Graffiti ($115M), Every Which Way But Loose ($85.1M), Coal Miner’s Daughter ($67M), even 1982’s An Officer and a Gentleman (near $130M). While that audience is older, their tastes have been passed on to younger generations.
The march for Top Gun 2 began all the way back at July 2019 San Diego Comic Con. As Deadline first told you, that’s when Cruise made a surprise appearance in Hall H after the Terminator: Dark Fate panel. The first teaser was also dropped at SDCC. San Diego was of utmost importance given the franchise’s naval base setting. Those exhibitors and press who attended CinemaCon last August got to see the pic’s first 20 minutes. This past April, CinemaCon got to see the Kosinski directed movie for the first time before its San Diego premiere, and Cannes, Royal London and Tokyo galas.
Other marketing highlights included Cruise’s custom intro for the NFL AFC Championship on CBS. Select brand partnerships included Applebee’s with a national TV, digital, and radio campaign with takeovers in 1600+ restaurants; Microsoft Flight Simulator launched a DLC and XBox created custom movie-themed consoles; JetSuite X wrapped a plane with Top Gun branding used to fly talent and influencers to the SDCC global junket and premiere; Porsche had a co-branded spot in the Super Bowl and sponsored a Need for Speed influencer event at their test track and Coca-Cola activated an in-theatre promotion around the globe.
Paramount Pictures and Interscope debuted two original songs and music videos from the soundtrack in the lead up to release including Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” and One Republic’s “I Ain’t Worried”.
Paramount created a custom spot that ran on ESPN and other nets featuring Best of the Best sports Mavericks including Sean McVay, head coach of Super Bowl Champions LA Rams, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, Masters winner Scottie Scheffler, UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Julianna Peña, and NCAA Basketball Champion and Most Outstanding Player Aliyah Boston. Overall, iSpot measured that the Melrose Lot spent $16.4M in TV spots that reached over 1 billion in impressions.
There were 3D outdoor executions around the globe including US, UK, Australia, Japan, Spain, Italy, and a custom video takeover of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai
Burj Khalifa shines with TOM CRUISE and one of the most anticipated movies of the year! TOP GUN MAVERICK now showing IN CINEMAS ONLY pic.twitter.com/spfD8U8bf3
— Four Star Films ME (@FourStarFilmsME) May 26, 2022
Updated Disney numbers this morning show Doctor Strange 2 with $15.8M weekend 4, and $20.5M 4-day and a running total of $374.8M. Their 20th Century Studios’ title The Bob’s Burgers Movie is now at $12.4M 3-day, $14.8M 4-day.
Total ticket sales for the 4-day holiday per Comscore were $218.9M, +1,023% from a year ago. That amount falls outside the top ten Memorial Day weekends at the box office per the B.O. authority.
SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Paramount is now calling the 4-day weekend for Top Gun: Maverick at $151M after a $38M Saturday, which is technically up 16% from Friday’s $32.7M ($52M less $19.3M Thursday previews). That uptick means a ton in today’s market, given how older skewing this movie is. Disney asserts it continues to own the Memorial Day weekend record with 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End with $153M; read previous update for all the agita. Still, with Top Gun 2, that’s the best Memorial Day weekend we’ve seen in quite some time.
Worldwide for Top Gun 2 is $248M, which is also the best Cruise has ever seen. For producer Jerry Bruckheimer, it’s his second best 3-day stateside debut after 2006’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($135.6M), and ahead of the 3-day of At World’s End ($114.7M). EntTelligence reports that 11.1M moviegoers will have seen Top Gun 2 to date through EOD Monday, blowing away the 2M opening weekend traffic of the 1986 pic.
Updated demos are 58% guys, 42% women. The under-35 repped 45%, which is promising, considering that the sequel is appealing to a wider demo. Those over 35 repped 55%, while the 18-34 segment repped 37% of attendance. Diversity demos were 66% Caucasian, 16% Latino and Hispanic, 7% African American, and 7% Asian.
Close to half of the audience said Top Gun 2 exceeded expectations, while another 30% said they would see it again in theaters. All promising.
The sequel overperformed in the western US, Rockies, South Central, and southeastern US, was at norm in the Midwest, and underperformed in the Northeast. Canada drove 7% of the pic’s weekend. Those markets that overperformed include Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Diego, Tampa, Portland OR, Kansas City, Nashville, Oklahoma City, and Jacksonville. “Top grossing theaters hailed from a diverse and varied geographical spread including LA, Nashville, NY, San Antonio, OKC, Knoxville, SLC, Denver, Dallas, Wash DC, SD, Tampa, Seattle, Phoenix, Portland OR, Fresno, and Orlando,” reads Paramount’s note. PLF screen accounted for 22% of the weekend, while Imax contributed another 15% or $21M. For Imax, it’s also the biggest opening weekend ever for a Cruise film, and the biggest ever over Memorial Day weekend.
“If you thought movies were dead, go see Top Gun: Maverick and then let me know what you think. This film heralds the return of the summer blockbuster, and is a catalyst that will accelerate demand for moviegoing like an F-18 breaking the sound barrier,” beamed Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX in a statement. “There’s no way you sit in a theatre, with a huge screen and chest-pounding speakers, and come away thinking there’s any other way you want to experience Top Gun: Maverick, and our hats are off to Tom Cruise, Joe Kosinski, and their fearless creative team for what they’ve accomplished.”
There’s an argument to be made that Top Gun 2 is soaking up all the business this weekend at the box office; a trend that was certainly occurring pre-pandemic with big tentpole movies, and even as recent as Christmas with Spider-Man: No Way Home.
20th Century Studios
However, credit goes to Disney for giving the weekend some breadth with the fourth weekend of Doctor Strange 2, which beat The Batman as the highest-grossing movie of the year to date, and the debut of The Bob’s Burgers Movie. In regards to the latter, that was a project put into development before the Disney-Fox merger. It was always a niche movie, so these numbers aren’t shocking. The Simpsons Movie ($74M opening in 2007) was never expected to be. EntTelligence says that roughly 1.1M moviegoers saw Bob’s Burgers over the last three days, a figure that’s not far from its weekly series average of ~1.3M viewers (according to Nielsen data published on TVSeriesFinale, from 9/27/20 to 5/23/21). Great exits coming from the fans who showed up. Parents and kids combined repped 16% of the audience, while general audience was 84%. The 18-34 demo repped a huge 67% of the weekend’s traffic.
Overall, EntTelligence reports that Memorial Day 2022 vs. the holiday a year ago: Ticket prices are up 7.5%, PLF tickets are +3.2% and there’s 69% more available seats for the public.
Sunday AM studio reported estimates; we’ll have more for you tomorrow.
1.) Top Gun: Maverick (Par) 4,735 theaters Fri $52M, Sat $38M, Sun $34M, Mon $27M, 3-day $124M, 4-day $151M/Wk 1
2.) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Dis) 3,805 theaters (-729), Fri $4.4M (-48%), Sat $6.1M, Sun $5.88M, Mon $4.7M, 3 day $16.4M (-49%), 4 day $21.1M, total $375.4M, /Wk 4
3.) The Bob’s Burgers Movie (20th/Dis) 3,425 theaters, Fri $5.7M, Sat $3.7M, Sun, $3.2M, Mon $2.4M, 3-day $12.6M, 4-day $15M/Wk 1
4.) Downton Abbey: A New Era (Foc) 3,830 theaters (+10), Fri $1.8M (-75%), Sat $2M, Sun $1.98M, Mon $1.6M, 3-day $5.9M (-63%), 4-day $7.5M, total $30M/Wk 2
5.) The Bad Guys (Uni) 2944 theaters (-761), Fri $1.2M (-18%), Sat $1.74M, Sun $1.65M, Mon $1.52M, 3-day $4.63M (-25%), 4-day $6.1M, total $82.8M/Wk 6
6.) Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24) 1,189 (-389) theaters, Fri $693K (-22%), Sat $913K, Sun $905K, Mon $679K, 3-day $2.5M (-19%), 4-day $3.189M, Total $57.5M/Wk 10
7.) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Par) 2,329 (-614) theaters, Fri $670K (-28%), Sat $1M, Sun $850K, Mon $600K, 3-day $2.52M (-38%) , 4-day $3.12M, Total $186.2M/Wk 8
8.) The Lost City (Par) 1,027 (-369) theaters, Fri $445K, Sat $710K, Sun $635K, Mon $510K, 3-day $1.79M (+15%), 4-day $2.3M, Total $102.2M/Wk 10
9.) Men (A24) 2,196 (-16) theaters, Fri $379K (-73%), Sat $433K, Sun $411k, Mon $309K 3-day $1.2M (-63%), 4-day $1.53M, Total $6.27M/Wk 2
10.) F3: Fun and Frustration (Independent Indian) 400 theaters, Fri $518K, Sat $261K, Sun $249K, Mon $167K, 3-day $1.04M , 4-day $1.2M/Wk 1
SATURDAY LATE NIGHT/EARLY SUNDAY AM: Who the heck knew that simple box office accounting would be such a headache 15 years later?
Disney is claiming at this point in time that they continue to have the all-time Memorial Day opening record with 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End with $153M. This includes the pure Friday through Monday of $139.8M over the May 25-28 holiday, plus $13.2M made on Thursday, May 24 in early shows.
Disney
Box Office Mojo made note of that $13.2M on Thursday, but never rolled it into the overall 4-day weekend opening of At World’s End. This was part of an early policy they had before Thursday previews became more common, not to include those monies in the weekend, because Thursday wasn’t part of the 3-day. At World’s End was one of the early Thursday night preview experiments (there had been others, such as 1997’s Lost World: Jurassic Park).
Meanwhile, box office stat org Comscore, the last we checked, didn’t have any type of record of these Thursday previews. Hence, the confusion. On paper, At World’s End, with $13.2M in previews, looks like a 5-day opener, not 4-day. Both Comscore and Mojo measured the 4-day holiday Memorial Day record for At World’s End at $139.8M.
Since roughly 2013, all Thursday preview monies for a movie gets rolled into its opening day Friday, and that’s a policy which has been respected by all the majors. Disney told Deadline yesterday that internally, they’ve included At World’s Thursday night preview money in the pic’s Friday opening number.
In Paramount’s eyes, Top Gun: Maverick with a 4-day opening of $150M (which includes $19.3M Thursday previews, rolled into Friday), is the new Memorial Day weekend champion. We hear at this point in time, Top Gun 2 is still at $150M over 4-days after a $37M Saturday. Should Top Gun 2 clear $153M+ by EOD Monday, this whole fight about who’s the king of the Memorial Day box office goes away.
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Paramount is now tracking Top Gun: Maverick at $150M over four days, which is the best opening ever stateside for Tom Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski.
Box office authority Comscore has solved a statistical dilemma that was popping up all night: They’ve verified that Top Gun 2 has a record four-day Memorial Day weekend opening here. It beats the four-day holiday start of 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($139.8M) and the four-day of 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($126.9M).
What the hell was going on? Sources say Box Office Mojo incorrectly counted $13.2M in previews twice for the first day of At World’s End (so the four-day gross isn’t really $153M). Meanwhile, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opened on a Thursday, so it’s technically designated as a five-day opener, and it made $151.9M over that span of time. I betcha Top Gun 2 beats that sum in four days as well. There’s just too much momentum here, especially coming off that rare A+ CinemaScore; a grade that bests the 1986 first installment’s A.
Paramount is calling Friday at $51.8M. If you back out $19.3M previews, Friday actually made $32.5M. The Melrose lot is expecting an uptick from that for Saturday of $37.5M (+15%). Three day is at $123M, still second-best for Paramount after Iron Man 2‘s $128.1M. It’s also the second-best opening ever for Jerry Bruckheimer after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($135.6M). Imax and Premium large format screens are fueling 40% of the pic’s business.
What’s happening here? Why so much success? Sequels to legacy movies work, even if the IP is 36 years old, and audiences have been yearning to see the further aerial adventures of Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. The great upside is that there haven’t been any sequels to Top Gun, and it’s a beloved classic passed down from generation to generation. Is there a Risky Business sequel that’s been kicking around? And old people are certainly going here to Top Gun 2 in great numbers, with 45% over 45, 21% over 55.
The question is whether these numbers will shift to the younger folks as they discover the movie. Male to female ratio continues to be at 57% to 43%. Also a majority of the audience was over 25 at 87%. Diversity demos were 60% Caucasian, 15% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Black, & 13% Asian/other.
As we told you before, the pic is playing across the country, with the top 15 theaters being San Antonio, Nashville, Knoxville, Oklahoma City, three theaters in Salt Lake City, Denver, and Dallas. It’s like we haven’t seen a movie speak to the heartland like this since Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (that movie’s wide break over the 4-day MLK in 2015 posted $107.2M).
While Hollywood doesn’t like to always be associated with Red States, there is definitely an underserved marketplace for that audience and military movies such as Top Gun 2. Only four of the sequel’s top cinemas were from LA, and one from NYC. Days of Thunder 2, anyone?
Focus Features
By the way, if older moviegoers are heading to Top Gun 2, one of the films that’s getting bruised by that is Focus Features’ Downton Abbey: A New Era (c’mon there is an overlap; some older Tom Cruise fans do like upstairs/downstairs drama). Downton is seeing a 60% hit to its second weekend for $6.4M. Four-day is $8.2M, which will get the pic’s 11-day gross to $30.8M; which is 49% behind the first movie’s running total. As we saw in the pic’s meh opening last weekend, there’s no high stakes propelling people to make time for this.
Exclaims social media monitor RelishMix about Top Gun 2‘s wonderful shockwaves on social, “Timing is everything. It’s hard to imagine a more remarkable time in recent history to release Top Gun 2 in light of world events — not to mention Fleet Week is in NYC this weekend, too. Social awareness runs hot, with a total social media universe of 417.5M, including Skydance social at 5.8M at 3X over norms — fueled most on YouTube with a growing stack of 20+ owned videos clocking +275M views, a well fed set of Facebook videos at +31M views and a new wave of TikTok at 22M views.”
By comparison, Cruise last big tentpole, Mission: Impossible – Fallout had a social media universe of 245.5M, which propelled a $61M opening. Currently close to 60% of Top Gun 2‘s social media reach includes Instagram and TikTok videos.
In Cruise himself, Paramount has one of the biggest marketing machines, and he has continually been selling this movie to his 40M fans. Jennifer Connelly counts close to 5M on social, Val Kilmer has 2.4M, Miles Teller 1M, and Glen Powell has 352K across all platforms.
Nancy and I knew from the minute we saw this at CinemaCon, Top Gun 2 was going to be one of the owners of the summer box office, so it’s not a surprise to hear that RelishMix noticed “a conversation tone running positive with excitement and appreciation,” with BTS footage stoking social media.
“Fans describe their service in the Navy and aircraft that they piloted, as well as missions of fathers and other family members in service of the US military. The on-screen authenticity displayed by Cruise has fans standing in line to see this film on the big screen. Younger fans describe how these trailers and featurettes are bringing their dreams of serving to life,” reports the social media analytics corp.
Huge on social was the bit of James Corden flying with Cruise on three planes. By Thursday the footage reached 7.2M views.
Also by Thursday, the Lady Gaga song from the sequel, “Hold My Hand,” clocked 16M views.
Despite the gonzo success of Top Gun 2, total ticket sales for all movies look to be coming in at an estimated $218.9M from Friday to Monday. That will fall just outside the top ten Memorial Day weekends of all-time in the Comscore annals. The top four-day weekend was in 2013, when Fast & Furious 6 opened, and all pics at the domestic box office grossed $314.3M. The tenth-highest Memorial Day weekend was in 2009 with $221.9M, which was when Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian led all films. Last year’s Memorial Day weekend grossed $97.8M; that figure propped also by Paramount, which pulled moviegoers back in from the pandemic with A Quiet Place: Part II. This year’s holiday frame is +124% over that number.
EntTelligence has measured that 3.6M moviegoers have seen Top Gun: Maverick to date, which already beats the 2M who watched the original in its opening weekend of May 16-18, 1986 ($8.1M). Since Thursday, two out of every three moviegoers have watched the Paramount-Skydance sequel. The average ticket price made available to the public is $12.96, while the average ticket price for a Top Gun 2 PLF ticket is $16.41. In regards to Friday’s business, 54% of those who watched Top Gun 2 came before 7PM, which indicates the older-leaning nature of moviegoers, and how they’re now planning their visits to the cinema as they become comfortable with the pandemic. Thirty-one percent watched the film between 7-9PM while 15% saw it after 9PM.
20th Century Studios
20th Century Studios/Disney’s The Bob’s Burgers Movie cooked up an A CinemaScore, with PostTrak exits of 89% positive and a 69% recommend. Kids under 12 gave it a 91% positive, 70% recommend. Friday was $5.7M, which industry projections believe will steer the Fox animated feature toward $15.6M over 3 days and $17.3M over 4. Moms lead at 56% female, and 73% between 18-34 with only 11% under 17 years old. Diversity demos were 53% Caucasian, 23% Latino and Hispanic, 13% Black & 11% Asian/other. The movie’s best business was on the coast, where nine of its top ten runs came from, the only outlier being the Alamo Drafthouse in Lakeline in Austin, TX.
1.) Top Gun: Maverick (Par) 4,735 theaters Fri $51.8M, 3-day $123M, 4-day $150M/Wk 1
2.) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Dis) 3,805 theaters (-729), Fri $4.4M (-48%), 3 day $17M (-47%), 4 day $21.8M, total $376.1M, /Wk 4
The Marvel movie will overtake Warner Bros.’ The Batman ($369.3M) as the highest grossing movie of 2022 to date.
3.) The Bob’s Burgers Movie (20th/Dis) 3,425 theaters, Fri $5.7M, 3-day $15.6M, 4-day $17.3M/Wk 1
4.) Downton Abbey: A New Era (Foc) 3,830 theaters (+10), Fri $1.8M (-75%), 3-day $6.4M (-60%), 4-day $8.2M, total $30.7M/Wk 2
5.) The Bad Guys (Uni) 2944 theaters (-761), Fri $1.2M (-18%), 3-day $4.9M (-20%), 4-day $6.6M, total $83.3M/Wk 6
6.) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Par) 2,329 (-614) theaters, Fri $670K (-28%), 3-day $2.9M (-29%) , 4-day $3.6M, Total $186.2M/Wk 8
7.) Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24) 1,189 (-389) theaters, Fri $693K (-22%), 3-day $2.5M (-19%), 4-day $3.2M, Total $57.5M/Wk 10
The Daniels’ movie is going to $60M. Yes, it is.
8.) F3: Fun and Frustration (Independent Indian) 400 theaters, Fri $518K, 3-day $1.66M , 4-day $1.7M/Wk 1
Book in 115 markets, the Telugu movie posted good results we here in NYC, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, Charlotte and Austin. Anil Ravipudi directed and written movie follows Venky and Varun, who try to get out of their financial problems. But what will happen when they meet the Pragathi Family who are greedy for money?
9.) The Lost City (Par) 1,027 (-369) theaters, Fri $400K (-5%), 3-day $1.54M (-1%), 4-day $1.97M, Total $101.9M/Wk 10
10.) Men (A24) 2,196 (-16) theaters, Fri $379K (-73%), 3-day $1.3M (-59%), 4-day $1.7M, Total $6.4M/Wk 2
Paramount
FRIDAY EVENING UPDATE: Top Gun: Maverick at this Friday night hour is on its way to a $51M Opening day (which includes $19.3M previews). It would not be shocking to wake up on Saturday morning and see that the sequel has edged out Iron Man 2 ($51.2M) to become Paramount’s top opening day ever. Already, the sequel is Tom Cruise’s best opening day ever in U.S./Canada besting Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘s first day of $22.8M by 124%.
Three day now for the Paramount-Skydance co-financed movie is $120M, still second best for Paramount after Iron Man 2‘s $128.1M. Four day now stands at $146.2M, which is ahead of the 4-day weighted Memorial Day weekend opening of Disney’s 2007 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($139.8M) and Paramount’s 2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($126.9M; however, that movie opened on a Thursday so it’s full 5 day run is at 151.95M). On its preview night we heard the latest by Cruise was playing strong all over the country including Salt Lake City, Denver, Orlando, San Francisco, the list went on and on. It’s not just big cities, but the flyover states as well.
Here’s how the top 5 chart is looking; based on industry estimates:
1.) Top Gun: Maverick (Par) 4,735 theaters Fri $51M, 3-day $120M, 4-day $146.2M/Wk 1
2.) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Dis) 3,805 theaters (-729), Fri $4.4M (-48%), 3 day $17M (-47%), 4 day $21.8M, total $376.1M, /Wk 4
3.) The Bob’s Burgers Movie (20th/Dis) 3,425 theaters, Fri $5.5M, 3-day $14.7M, 4-day $18.1M/Wk 1
4.) Downton Abbey: A New Era (Foc) 3,830 theaters (+10), Fri $1.7M (-77%), 3-day $6M (-63%), 4-day $7.7M, total $30.2M/Wk 2
5.) The Bad Guys (Uni) 2944 theaters (-761), Fri $1.2M (-18%), 3-day $4.8M (-22%), 4-day $6.4M, total $83.1M/Wk 6
Everett
FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick is set to earn $142.4M over four days. Friday for the Tom Cruise sequel is looking like $50M with an estimated 3-day of $117M. That would make Top Gun: Maverick the second-biggest opener for Paramount after Iron Man 2 per Mojo, that pic debuting to $128.1M in 2010, and ahead of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($100.1M in 2008). Top Gun 2 is also the second-biggest opening day for a Paramount title after Iron Man 2‘s $51.1M.
Look, even if these numbers recede, this is far and away — no pun intended, Mr. Cruise — the biggest opening for the three-time Oscar nominated, nearly 60-year-old blockbuster star. See, industry? It certainly paid off for some studios to hold their movies during the pandemic until cinemas reopened.
When asked during his masterclass at Cannes whether straight-to-streaming was an option for the Skydance co-financed movie, Cruise said, “No, that’s not going to happen ever,” which triggered great applause. “That was never going to happen.”
FRIDAY AM UPDATE: After a 36-year wait, the Tom Cruise sequel Top Gun: Maverick finally took off to a massive $19.3 million in previews from Thursday 3 p.m. showtimes and a one-time 7 p.m. Tuesday fan event.
That’s the highest-grossing preview in Paramount Pictures history, the highest-grossing Memorial Day preview in history, and of course it’s the best for Cruise. Early projections heading into the weekend were $80M-$100M over four days, and a high-octane start such as this easily could propel Top Gun: Maverick to the best Memorial Day weekend opening ever, besting the $139.8M four-day total of 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
Without a question Top Gun: Maverick also is looking to be the best opening of Cruise’s career, easily leaving behind his 2005 three-day cume of War of the Worlds, which was $64.8M.
Peter Bart: After ‘Top Gun: Maverick’s Setbacks And Delays, Its Star Is Back In Cruise Control
Everything is working in Top Gun 2‘s favor: It’s the widest release ever at 4,735 theaters and has 5 out of 5 stars on ComScore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, with a 96% positive and an enormous 84% definite recommend. PLFs (31%) and Imax (21%) combined repped 52% of preview ticket sales. Imax alone counted $4.1M in previews, the best ever for the exhibitor with a Paramount title, a Cruise movie and a top 10 all-time Imax result as well.
Also juicing bucks for Top Gun 2 is a 97% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes after a month’s worth of buzzy global premieres and a current audience score on RT of an amazing 99%.
The previous big preview for Paramount was 2009’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with $16M, which was on a Tuesday and resulted in a $62M Wednesday (previews repped 25% of that figure). Best Thursday previews for a movie opening over Memorial Day weekend actually belongs to Disney’s Star Wars: A Solo Story which saw $14.1M, but only repped 40% of its first Friday’s $35.3M. That movie was panned by fans and yet resulted in a $103M four-day holiday opening.
Thursday previews began at 3 p.m. for the Paramount/Skydance feature. In addition, there was also a “Top Gun Tuesday” with premium large-format, Imax, and Dolby screens opening their curtains at 7 p.m. for one show only. We hear the majority of the sequel’s preview cash was made Thursday.
Top Gun: Maverick blows away Cruise’s previous Thursday preview record, that being 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which earned $6M.
Top Gun: Maverick means a little something extra to exhibition and studios overall: Outside of older guys attending, which Cruise always attracts (Fallout pulled in 41% men over 25), the hope is that this sequel plays wide, from under-25 to female Cruise fans who hung his posters in their bedrooms and lockers during the 1980s. Thursday night saw unweighted a turnout of 57% guys to 43% women. Fallout‘s Thursday night repped 26% of its first-day Friday of $22.8M before going on to make $61.2M.
20th Century Studios
Elsewhere on Thursday night, 20th Century Studios/Disney’s The Bob’s Burgers Movie saw $1.5M in previews from shows that began at 5 p.m. The pic is 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a current audience score of 96%. A $10M-$14M four-day launch is expected at 3,425 U.S.-Canada locations. Next to other previews, Sing 2 did $1.6M on its Tuesday early shows, Encanto did $1.5M on Tuesday previews — both in 2021 — while The Bad Guys did $1.2M on the Thursday night before its Friday opening last month.
Among regular ranked movies Thursday, Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness earned $2.4M at 4,534 theaters, off 14% from Wednesday for a running three-week total of $354.4M.
Focus Features’ Downton Abbey: A New Era was second with $1.3M, down 11% from Wednesday for a first-week take of $22.6M at 3,820 locations.
Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys was third with $576,000, +1%, at 3,705 venues and a running five-week total of $76.7M.
A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once booked at 1,576 posted a ninth Thursday of $426K, -16%, and a running cume of $54.3M.
Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 drew around $330K, -4%, at 2,943 for a seven-week running total of $182.6M.
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