Weekend projections: Maverick posts amazing $86-million second weekend

June 5, 2022

A $50-million second weekend for Top Gun: Maverick would be a respectable number for a film coming off a huge Memorial Day-weekend debut. If the film posted $60 million I’d be talking about an excellent hold, the lack of competition, and the big challenge coming next weekend when it’ll go up against Jurassic World: Dominion. At $70 million, I’d be marveling at it having the best hold for any Memorial Day opener in modern history. So… what does one say about an $86-million second weekend? Words pretty much fail. But I can share some interesting data with you…

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 with 80% more than our model’s prediction this weekend (assuming Paramount’s number holds up, and I have no reason to doubt that). Given the slight weakness of the other films in the top five, it’s fair to say that performance isn’t down to underlying strength in the market. It’s simply the result of great word-of-mouth and people who saw it last weekend coming back for a second (or third, or fourth) helping.

The scale of the performance is maybe best illustrated by its comparison with other films that opened at number one over Memorial Day weekend. I dug all of those films out, going back to The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which debuted with a then-record $72.1 million over three days in 1997.

Out of the eighteen films that came top over Memorial Day over the past 25 years, Bruce Almighty had the best hold, falling 45% in its second weekend back in 2003. That’s in the days before Thursday night previews and the inflation in opening weekend numbers that we’ve seen recently. If we take out Top Gun: Maverick’s $19.3-million in Thursday and early screening grosses, it actually earned $107.4 million from Friday to Sunday last weekend, so is off just 20% or so. That’s really unheard of, even going back to the days when the studios and theaters weren’t going all out for massive opening weekends.

One reason I’m looking at this specific set of data is that it allows us to get an idea of the long-term prospects for Maverick. Here’s how the second-weekend decline for Memorial Day chart toppers compares with the ratio between their opening weekend and final domestic box office:

Noting that there’s nothing in the top right corner of that chart, where Top Gun will sit, there’s a pretty strong linear correlation between second-week drop and overall multiplier (as one would expect). Plugging in a 32% second-weekend decline, the predicted multiplier for Maverick is 4.56, which would translate into a final domestic box office of $578 million. That’s how good the film’s second weekend is. If it keeps up this pace, it’ll cruise into the top 20 of all time. If we use 20%, which is arguably a more accurate figure for its second-weekend decline, that points to a final domestic cume of $670 million.

Will it end with those kind of numbers? That’s hard to say when we’re this far into uncharted territory. Maybe the lack of direct competition this weekend is artificially inflating its numbers (although the same was true for many other films that had blockbuster Memorial Day openings). Perhaps Jurassic World: Dominion will put it in its place next weekend.

One thing I will say at this point is that Top Gun: Maverick should top $500 million at the domestic box office, and if it doesn’t that’ll be because another film outshines it in the next few weeks. There’s no version of this story that isn’t good news for movie theaters.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time biggest weekends - All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com