Top Gun: Maverick Box Office Passes Major Marvel Movie On All-Time List

Tom Cruise defeats the Avengers as Top Gun: Maverick soars past an MCU film as the sixth highest grossing domestic box office in history.
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Top Gun: Maverick continues to fly past milestones, taking down a wildly successful Marvel movie in the domestic box office. Since its release in May 2022, the 36 years in the making sequel starring veteran movie star Tom Cruise broke a few records off the bat for Cruise, becoming his first film to pass $100 million its opening weekend and his first to crack $1 billion worldwide. Among its other records, Maverick became the highest-grossing Memorial Day weekend opener with $160.5 million and stayed in the top five for 10 weeks after its debut. Maverick is not only a box office sensation; it's also a critically-acclaimed movie with patient storytelling and meaningful character development.

The Joseph Kosinski-directed film has managed to become the 13th-highest grossing movie on a global scale, even without screening in Russia or China, which are typically two huge overseas markets. Domestically, the film's box office has been incredible to witness as it has soared through the all-time list, cracking the list of top 10 highest-grossing domestic box office hauls in history. This is especially impressive since many all-time box office sensations are the result of large media franchises with a built-in and active fan base. Maverick beat the odds when it dethroned 2017's Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi, and then kept climbing, surpassing Marvel's The Avengers, Jurassic World, and eventually, number 7 on the list, Titanic.

Now, the Tom Cruise and Miles Teller film has moved up another rung. In the latest figures, Variety has reported that Top Gun: Maverick officially surpassed the MCU's Avengers: Infinity War as the 6th highest-grossing domestic film of all time. With $679 million domestically to Infinity War's $678, Maverick has come out on top and is now just under $21,000,000 away from unseating Black Panther and breaking the top 5 highest domestic box office.

Though it's already an achievement for a Paramount film to best a Disney film in terms of numbers (Maverick is only one of two Paramount films in the top 10 as opposed to five from Walt Disney Studios), Maverick had to work even harder to earn its place. Though Infinity War deserved all the praise it received as a thrilling superhero crossover event, the Marvel film had the benefit of 10 years of hype and was able to build excitement with around 20 films that built up to it. Additionally, Infinity War is part of a series, so viewers that wanted to stay caught up with the MCU had to tune in. In comparison, Maverick was the sequel to a nearly 40-year-old one-off movie which, despite its subsequent cult following and 80's nostalgia, couldn't have predicted a sequel with this level of success.

Still in theaters, Top Gun: Maverick will most likely continue its meteoric rise until it faces more stiff competition in the form of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. A hit to Maverick's stellar figures might occur when the film is released digitally on August 23rd. However, audiences seem to appreciate seeing the movie on the big screen, so it's possible that another milestone is in Maverick's future. With the reports that the owner of Regal Cinemas is poised to declare bankruptcy, Top Gun: Maverick's continued success is proof that theaters aren't dead.

Source: Variety