Box Office: ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ projects $150 million opening

close

Video

Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines 5/24

Fox News Flash top entertainment and celebrity headlines are here. Check out what clicked this week in entertainment.

Superheroes aren’t the only ones making an impact at the box office.

According to Deadline, "Top Gun: Maverick" is raking $150 million over four days – the best opening for the film’s lead Tom Cruise.

Comscore shared that over Memorial Day weekend, the "Top Gun" sequel now takes the place of the highest grossing movie over the holiday weekend. It beat the 2007 "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End" that took in $139.8 million.

Tom Cruise attends the UK premiere of "Top Gun: Maverick" at Leicester Square on May 19, 2022, in London. (Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

The release of "Top Gun: Maverick," which was delayed two years due to the coronavirus, is expected to bring diversity back to the box office. In previous years, theaters dominated by superhero fanfare over Memorial Day.

TOM CRUISE ARRIVES TO 'TOP GUN' SEQUEL PREMIERE IN SAN DIEGO VIA HELICOPTER

According to the Hollywood Reporter, 90 percent of Friday’s viewers were over the age of 25. Viewers left the theater giving the film a coveted A+ CinemaScore.

The film’s star, Tom Cruise, is expected to have his biggest career opening, with a four-day gross of at least $92 million, per official tracking. Cruise’s 2005 "War of the Worlds" holds the spot for his top domestic opening with a three-day gross of $64.9 million. 

Cruise’s second-best movie opening was "Mission Impossible — Fallout," released in 2018. According to Comscore, the movie hit $61.2 million. All the star’s other films opened with less than $60 million.

"Top Gun: Maverick" marks the best career opener for Tom Cruise. (Lionel Hahn/Getty Images)

"Top Gun: Maverick" hits theaters 36 years after the original "Top Gun" was released in 1986. Cruise has been heavily marketing his newest movie by attending premieres in San Diego, the Cannes Film Festival, a royal screening in London and a premiere in Japan.

For the San Diego premiere, Cruise arrived in a helicopter. The 59-year-old movie star's helicopter touched down on the retired USS Midway aircraft carrier in San Diego. The helicopter was emblazoned with Cruise's name and the "Top Gun: Maverick" logo.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER

Cruise, dressed in a suit and wearing aviators, waved to fans as he exited the helicopter.

From the beginning, Cruise made it clear that "Top Gun: Maverick" would "never" hit the streaming services, despite the two-year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tom Cruise arrives in a helicopter to the world premiere of "Top Gun: Maverick" aboard the USS Midway in San Diego, California. (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

"Maverick" was initially supposed to be released in July 2019 through Paramount Pictures but was postponed in August 2018 "to allow the production to work out all the complex flight sequences," according to Deadline.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News’ Tracy Wright contributed to this report.