Top Gun: Maverick Box Office Previews Break Paramount and Memorial Day Weekend Record


Top Gun: Maverick has shattered Paramount's preview box office record. $18 million is good for any film in the pandemic era, but a huge win for the studio. This is also on tract to be the biggest showing ever for the Memorial Day weekend according to Gitesh Pandaya from Box Office Guru. Tom Cruise is looking like he'll break his own record at the box office for an opening weekend. Multiple projections had Maverick sitting in the top spot, and these latest returns only bolster those claims. Over on the audience reaction side of things, people just love the film. One peek at Rotten Tomatoes shows a near-perfect audience score at 99% and the critics not lagging far behind at 97%. A rare case where the two consensus line up. So, it's clear skies ahead for Maverick as Cruise wheels out a classic action blockbuster out of the hangar after 30 years. This stunt, like most of his movies, is going to go over like gangbusters.

During a featurette for the movie, the star was asked why now was the time for a Top Gun sequel. Cruise responded, "I wasn't ready to make a sequel until we had a special story worthy of a sequel. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer added, "And until technology evolved so we could delve deeper into the experience of a fighter pilot. The first movie became something that changed a generation. So this is exciting to come back and get in those jets again."

Paramount released a description for Top Gun: Maverick that you can read right here: "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."

Any chance you're seeing Top Gun: Maverick this weekend? Let us know down in the comments! 

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