The last Monday in May is the Memorial Day of the Fallen Soldiers, a legal holiday in the United States, plus the two previous weekends, it is a small holiday. Every weekend, North American theaters will release some blockbuster movies, and this year's debut is "Top Gun: Maverick" (Top Gun: Maverick), whose schedule has been changed again and again.

"Top Gun 2: The Lone Ranger" stills

Over the three days of the weekend, "Top Gun 2" was released in 4,735 theaters in North America, and finally achieved a box office of 124 million US dollars, which is quite ideal. Since December 2019, this is the best opening score among all the films released in North American theaters, except for superhero comic adaptation films. Rather than saying how high the IP value of "Top Gun" itself is, it is better to say that it is all due to the personal charm of the starring Tom Cruise.
Thirty-six years ago, it was "Top Gun" that established Tom Cruise as a superstar. Its North American box office is actually only a mere $8.2 million. Including inflation, it is about $20 million today, and it can’t be considered a blockbuster. However, relying on a solid reputation, the film continued to accumulate audiences, the box office slowly climbed, and finally became the national box office champion of the year. Thirty-six years later, "Top Gun 2" reached the peak of the North American box office since Tom Cruise started filming. In 2018, before the epidemic, the opening box office of "Mission Impossible 6: Total Disintegration" starring Cruise was 61.43 million US dollars, and "Top Gun 2" directly doubled.
Outside of North America, Top Gun 2 also grossed more than $100 million overseas. In addition, the film's reputation is also quite outstanding, "Rotten Tomatoes" film critics rated 96%, audience praise is as high as 99%.

"Top Gun 2" is rated 96% by critics and 99% by audiences on Rotten Tomatoes

As for the idea of shooting a sequel, it first came from the owner of Skydance, David Ellison. As the child of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, David, like his father, He has been very interested in airplanes since he was a child, and has a skill in the field of aerobatics. In 2006, he founded Sky Dance Film Company, and the first film he invested in was "Air Combat Heroes". After that, he loved "Top Gun" so much, he approached Tony Scott, the director of the film, to discuss the plan to shoot a sequel, and gradually got his eyes on it. Sadly, in 2012 Tony Scott took a leap from the Thomas Suspension Bridge in California and said goodbye to this world. Just two days before he committed suicide, Tom Cruise personally accompanied him to find a suitable location.
After that, with the full support of Jim Gianopulos, the head of Paramount Pictures, the project of "Top Gun 2" was successfully approved, and the director was changed to cooperate with Tom Cruise in "The Lost Battle". Joseph Kosinski of The Environment. After the completion of the film, it was originally planned to be released in the Christmas season of 2020, but unfortunately the epidemic situation, the schedule was pushed back and forth. Last September, Janopoulos was kicked out by Paramount. For him, who is used to spending a lot of money on blockbuster movies and has the style of an old-school Hollywood film tycoon, "Top Gun 2" can be said to be his curtain call. Being able to withstand the pressure, willing to postpone the schedule again and again, and resolutely not attracting new customers on Paramount’s streaming media platform, in addition to the insistence of starring Tom Cruise, in fact, Janopoulos’ opinion plays a very important role. effect.
Counting the previously released "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" and "The Lost City", Paramount has three films that have exceeded 100 million at the North American box office this year-you know, only seven Hollywood films exceeded 100 million at the North American box office last year. ——It’s all a product of Jim Janopoulos’ presidency, but at the premiere of “Top Gun 2” earlier, the former CEO of Paramount Pictures didn’t even have an invitation letter. I haven't received one, of course, this is also in line with Hollywood's usual style of people taking tea and cold.

"Happy Burger" poster

In the face of the strong debut of "Top Gun 2", there was a new film that dared to enter 3,425 theaters in North America over the weekend. This is the animated film "The Bob's Burger's Movie" produced by Disney. The film is derived from the animated series that began airing on Fox in 2011. Each episode of the original drama is 20 minutes long, telling the warm story of Bob's family running a burger restaurant in a small town on the east coast of the United States. It has now aired 12 seasons with a total of 238 episodes, and the 13th season has also entered the production process. After seeing a solid audience base, this animated film featuring a joyful comedy style finally earned a weekend box office of $12.6 million, a very gratifying result.
Relying on the pull of "Top Gun 2", the total North American box office this weekend reached 175 million US dollars, which is only one step away from the 181 million US dollars in the same period in the pre-epidemic era in 2019. Of course, this does not mean that the North American film market is about to get out of the trough, and more attractive new films are still needed to be released in order to fully recover from the impact of the epidemic.