Box Office: ‘Top Gun Maverick’ Breaks Memorial Day Weekend Records With $156 Million

variety.com:

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterTom Cruise’s star-spangled blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” capped off Memorial Day weekend with a box office debut for record books.

The sequel, which sees Cruise return to the cockpit after 36 years, collected $156 million in its first four days of release.Those ticket sales were enough to overtake Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which launched with $153 million over the long weekend in 2007, as the biggest Memorial Day debut in history.Paramount and Skydance had originally expected “Top Gun: Maverick” to finish the long weekend with $151 million, but the film had a better-than-expected turnout on Sunday, pushing the three-day haul to $126 million.

The movie played 4,732 North American cinemas, the widest release of all time. In a promising sign for summer movie season, “Top Gun: Maverick” — without the help of costumed heroes or spells — landed one of the top pandemic-era openings after “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($260 million), “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($187 million) and “The Batman” ($134 million).It also secured the biggest debut in Cruise’s 40-year career, and his first to surpass $100 million in a single weekend. “War of the Worlds,” which opened to $64 million in 2005, previously stood as Cruise’s biggest opening weekend, followed by 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” with $61 million.At the international box office, the sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun” took flight with $124 million, an impressive sum since the movie isn’t playing in key territories, China and Russia.