Tom Cruise in »Maverick«: high at the box office for the Hollywood star

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Tom Cruise: The 59-year-old's biggest box office hit to date was the science fiction film "War of the Worlds"

Photo: Christopher Jue / Getty Images For Paramount Pictures

Just ten days after »Top Gun: Maverick« opened in US cinemas, Hollywood star Tom Cruise has achieved the best box-office success of his career with the action film.

According to the industry portal Boxofficemojo on Sunday, the strip starring Cruise in the role of pilot Pete Mitchell aka Maverick has grossed over $291 million in North America alone since the end of May.

Previous hit films by Cruise such as "Rain Man", "The Mummy" or the "Mission: Impossible" episodes had each brought in less.

The 59-year-old actor's biggest box-office hit to date was director Steven Spielberg's sci-fi film The War of the Worlds (2005), which grossed $234 million over its entire run in the US and Canada.

»Top Gun: Maverick« got off to a flying start in North America over the long Memorial holiday weekend at the end of May.

At over $160 million in four days, the film trumped the previous memorial record holder, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).

More than three decades after his theatrical success with »Top Gun« (1986), directed by Joseph Kosinski, Cruise once again plays the daring pilot Maverick, who is now preparing a young squad of pilots for a dangerous combat mission.

ele/dpa