Box Office: ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Cruising to $150 Million Memorial Day Opening

variety.com:

J. Kim Murphy At long last, Tom Cruise is entering the $100 million opening club.Playing in 4,735 locations, the widest theatrical release in domestic box office history, “Top Gun: Maverick” is projected to earn $150 million over the holiday weekend.

On a three-day scale, Paramount is predicting a $123 million haul. That’s easily a new record debut for Cruise, whose previous best — a $64.8 million opening for 2005’s “War of the Worlds” — is getting left in the dust.The legacy sequel to Tony Scott’s swoony 1986 original kicked off with a bang, drawing a $51.8 million opening day, including $19.3 million in Thursday previews.

That’s a record for Paramount Pictures, outdoing the $51.2 million opening day of 2010’s “Iron Man 2.” “Maverick,” which was co-financed and co-produced by Skydance, originally carried a projected opening between $85 million and $100 million over the long weekend, though momentum has only grown since. “Top Gun: Maverick” was originally set to premiere way back when in the summer of 2020, setting its release date long before COVID-19 had entered the vernacular of the public.

As the pandemic caused studios to overhaul theatrical schedules, many major releases found new homes on streaming services. Paramount sold films like Aaron Sorkin’s eventual Oscar contender “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and Michael B.