Top Gun: Maverick Projected for $180 Million Global Opening Box Office

Top Gun: Maverick is projected to have an absolutely staggering global opening box office. Deadline says that the Paramount feature could climb to $180 million in the first weekend. That total would put the movie right on par with the biggest hits of the pandemic era. Viewers seems to be eager to see Tom Cruise take to the skies again. But, it isn’t just audiences powering the surge. Critics have really enjoyed the film as well. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film still enjoys a lofty score and that only increased the hype behind the latest trip into the great blue yonder. 

Interestingly enough, Cruise has never opened a film above $64 million here in the United States. However, that figures to change with Maverick‘s lofty projections. (The leader in the clubhouse at the moment is War of the Worlds back in 2005.) Even his crowd-pleaser, Mission Impossible – Fallout only managed to snare $61.2 million in its U.S. opening. Blue skies ahead for Top Gun this weekend.

“I wasn’t ready to make a sequel until we had a special story worthy of a sequel,” Cruise said during a featurette. “And until technology evolved so we could delve deeper into the experience of a fighter pilot.” Producer Jerry Bruckheimer chimed-in, “The first movie became something that changed a generation. So this is exciting to come back and get in those jets again.”

Here’s Paramount’s newest synopsis for Top Gun: Maverick: “After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him.” 

“When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: ‘Rooster,’ the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka ‘Goose.’ Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.”

Top Gun: Maverick soars into theaters on May 27.

Do you think the Top Gun: Maverick opening weekend could be even bigger? Let us know down in the comments!