Weekend projections: Top Gun: Maverick will smash Memorial Day record

May 29, 2022

Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick will post a $124-million opening three-day weekend, according to Paramount’s Sunday-morning projection. With another $27 million expected tomorrow, it will shoot to $151 million by the end of the long weekend. In the process, it’ll topple Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’s $114.7-million 3-day/$139.8-million 4-day Memorial Days records (see the 3-day records here and 4-day records here).

Here’s how the domestic numbers look this morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



Maverick is coming in quite a bit lower than our model’s Friday-morning prediction, although as I talked about at the time, there was a huge range of uncertainty, given how relatively huge its preview numbers were. The question at that point was whether the people turning out early were hardcore Top Gun fans, or if the film had become a must-see event that was drawing in people beyond its key targets. The results for the weekend so far suggest that it was more the former than the latter, although no-one in their right minds would quibble with a weekend over $100 million for a film that’s not part of a super hero franchise.

This is easily Tom Cruise’s best opening weekend, topping the $64.9 million earned by War of the Worlds back in 2005. (It also tops the $73 million earned by Austin Power in Goldmember, which Cruise made a memorable cameo in back in 2002.) It confirms once again his status as the “last movie star,” as well as rewarding Paramount’s faith in him as this film and Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning have been pushed back repeatedly, partly due to the pandemic, but also to get them absolutely right, in Cruise’s estimation. The studio will reap the benefits, not only by having a box office hit, but also a film that will lift the profile of their Paramount+ streaming service when it becomes available there later in the Summer.

By the way, other tracking suggests Maverick will beat Paramount’s weekend projection by a little, so I suspect that the final numbers will look even better when they come out on Tuesday.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie is also coming in well below our Friday-morning prediction, but it’s also topping our original forecast, which was for a $11.5-million weekend. Again, core fans turned up early and the film hasn’t spread much beyond them this weekend, but it’s certainly come in with very respectable numbers for a piece of counter-programming, and might have a decent run.

The rest of the films in the top 9 are something of a mixed bag. Memorial Day tends to be kind to new releases, but harder on returning films, and Doctor Strange is taking something of a beating in second place. Likewise Downton Abbey: A New Era, which is falling remarkably quickly for a film targeting an older demographic. The standout performer this weekend is The Lost City, which passed $100 million domestically on Friday and will be up 15% in its tenth weekend in theaters. It’s clearly benefiting from being a second choice for people who can’t get in to Top Gun shows.

- Studio weekend projections
- Biggest Memorial Day 3-Day Weekends
- Biggest Memorial Day 4-Day Weekends
- All-time biggest weekends - All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Tom Cruise