'Top Gun: Maverick' takes off at the box office and inspires optimism in the sector

Seven theaters at the Regal multiplexes in downtown Washington were simultaneously screening

the sequel to the 1980s hit that made Tom Cruise stardom.

The theater was far from full, but the lines for popcorn and soda were back.

The sector estimates that counting this Monday, a holiday in the United States, the film will have already raised more than 150 million dollars (about 140 million euros) in North America, opening the way to a season of premieres with which the industry wants to begin to forget the pandemic.

With the advantage of having an additional holiday for Memorial Day or Day of the Memorials, it is one of the highest-grossing releases of the year

More than 11 million viewers are estimated to have flocked to the 4,735 theaters where the film has been shown since Thursday's preview.

Rivals

falls short of the $187 million opening weekend of

and very far, yes, from the great success of Christmas 2021, the biggest since the pandemic,

Throughout the world, in the absence of official data, the sector manages estimates of 250 to 300 million dollars in the first days of projection, after a promotional campaign in which the protagonist, Tom Cruise, has turned.

The Top Gun sequel has a downside: aside from not being released in Russia, due to the Ukraine war and sanctions, it doesn't seem very likely to be widely released in China either.

This week,

reported that the Chinese technology giant Tencent, which was one of the main partners in the production, has quietly withdrawn for fear that the Chinese government will be upset for participating in a film that glorifies the forces United States navies.

At the moment, it has not been approved in the country.

Tom Cruise's film has two differentiating factors that encourage the sector.

It is the greatest success in several years of a film that is not about superheroes (although the character of Maverick is close to them) and is capable of attracting older audiences and audiences from various generations: the young people and adolescents who discover it. for the first time, but also those who knew the original film from 36 years ago.

According to Paramount, the production company, 55% of those who have gone to theaters to see the film are over 35 years of age, the public that was most reluctant to return after the pandemic.

Overall, the box office success of

and

is great news for the entire industry, which is facing a wave of releases with box office aspirations.

Since 2019, theaters haven't had a normal summer and this one aspires to get as close to that as possible.

was screened this weekend

have already set a date for the following releases, of sagas that somehow also appeal to nostalgia while looking for new viewers.

from Universal Pictures, arrives massively in theaters on June 10, while Disney waits another week for its

from one of the protagonists of the

Also scheduled for release in June are the horror film

and

the biopic about the king of rock and roll starring Tom Hanks and Xavier Samuel.

a blockbuster

Top Gun: Maverick

is a blockbuster that has cost between 150 and 170 million dollars.

In addition, an additional $100 million to $125 million has been spent on advertising, promotion, and marketing.

It is a film with spectacular special effects, one to enjoy on the big screen.

For this reason, Paramount preferred to delay its premiere as long as necessary (initially the plan was to have released it in the summer of 2020) to do it in theaters and not through pay television services.

The producers paid the US Navy $11,374 an hour to use their F/A-18 Super Hornets in the film's shoot, according to Bloomberg.

The Navy agreed to transfer these combat aircraft under the condition that the actor did not touch the controls of the fighters at any time, in accordance with its regulations.

Mind you, Tom Cruise insisted that all the actors playing the pilots in the film fly in one of the fighter planes built by Boeing so they could understand what it's like to be a pilot flying under enormous gravitational forces.

American theaters have accumulated a total gross of $2.7 billion so far this year, according to Comscore data cited by Bloomberg.

That's more than quadruple the $610 million from the same period a year earlier, when coronavirus restrictions kept audiences away from the big screen.

This same weekend that the sequel to

has swept the box office,

has added another 16 million dollars and accumulates 370 million since its premiere, which for the moment becomes the movie highest grossing of the year in the United States, ahead of