Top Gun: Maverick Projected for Record-Breaking $142 Million+ Memorial Day Weekend Box Office

Top Gun: Maverick is already looking like a major win for Tom Cruise and company, as opening weekend over the Memorial Day Holiday really kicks off. According to the latest projections, Top Gun: Maverick is already poised to earn a projected $142.4 million at the box office – earnings which would finally shatter a 15-year Memorial Day Weekend record set by Disney and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which earned $139.8M in 2007. The regular three-day weekend estimate is $117M, which would be the second-biggest opening ever for Paramount, behind Marvel and Paramount's Iron Man 2, which earned $128.1M in its opening weekend in 2010. 

Friday opening estimates for Top Gun 2 are $50, which would arguably put it in striking distance of Iron Man 2's $51.1M opening day. The latest Thursday preview night (and a Tuesday fan event) box office estimates are $19.3M, making it easily the best preview night record for Paramount, not to mention the highest-grossing Memorial Day preview ever. 

Finally, Top Gun: Maverick will easily clear the bar for Tom Cruise's biggest opening weekend ever; the movie icon's previous personal best was War of the Worlds with $64.8 in 2005. 

READ: Top Gun: Maverick Official Review

This is all great news for Cruise, director Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion) and the cast and crew of Top Gun: Maverick – all of whom you can hear from in the video above. The team behind Top Gun 2 held the film for two years waiting for the exact kind of opportunity we're now seeing unfold: a chance to truly rekindle the public's love of movies – in theaters – and truly reward them for that experience. In the midst of everything – there's something nice about that thought... 

"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 is now in theaters and IMAX.