Top Gun: Maverick flies sky-high to stunning $151 million Memorial Day opening, best Tom Cruise record ever!

Paramount Pictures has declared the 2022 four-day Memorial Day weekend for Top Gun: Maverick the best opening Tom Cruise has ever seen.

The film brought in $38 million on Saturday, up from Friday’s $32.7 million. It has sold $151 million in tickets nationwide for the weekend so far with a stunning $248 million total worldwide.

“That will easily make Top Gun: Maverick the highest-grossing debut in Cruise's 40 year career, overtaking "War of the Worlds," which opened to $64.8 million in 2005,” CNN reports.

This leaves Paramount in a hot dogfight with Disney, which says it still rules the skies by owning the Memorial Day weekend record with 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End with $153M.

While the opening is Cruise’s best Memorial Day weekend yet, it is producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s second best following 2006’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which brought in $135.6M.

EntTelligence reports that 11.1M moviegoers are projected to have seen Top Gun: Maverick by Monday, crushing the $2 million opening weekend traffic of the original 1986 film that co-starred Kelly McGillis.

Deadline reported that 58% of the film’s attendees are men and 42% women. While 55% of ticket buyers were over 45 and 45% under, the 18-34 age group brought in 37% of tickets.

The diversity factor breaks down as the following: 66% Caucasian, 16% Latino and Hispanic, 7% African American, and 7% Asian.

Nearly half of the viewers said Top Gun: Maverick surpassed their expectations, and another 30% said they would go back to see it again in a movie theater.

“The sequel overperformed in the western U.S., Rockies, South Central, and southeastern U.S., was at norm in the Midwest, and underperformed in the Northeast. Canada drove 7% of the pic’s weekend. Those markets that overperformed include Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Diego, Tampa, Portland OR, Kansas City, Nashville, Oklahoma City, and Jacksonville,” Deadline reported.

“Tom Cruise is one of the few true movie stars left in the business," Comscore (SCOR) senior media analyst at Comscore Paul Dergarabedian told CNN Business. “His name on the marquee means something to audiences who have come to trust that his films will be worth every dollar of that movie ticket purchase.”

According to CNN, some may be surprised that none of Cruise’s movies have opened with totals for more than $65 million, but that’s because Cruise’s films have everlasting impact. According to the television news network, Cruise’s films have “notched more than $10 billion at the global box office since 1981 despite his films never coming close to a $100 million opening.”

“Cruise is all about the marathon, not the sprint, when it comes to his performance at the box office," Dergarabedian told the network. “The consistency of his bankability over his more than four decades on the big screen is virtually unrivaled.”

Maverick: Top Gun was scheduled to play in theaters in 2020, but was held due to the coronavirus pandemic. Other theatrical films tried streaming, but Paramount held Top Gun 2 until audiences could see it in theaters — a decision Cruise was determined to stick to, as he said he would “never” go to streaming.

Patience seems to be paying off for Paramount. The film has had a grand slam holiday weekend in ticket sales and landed great reviews. It has an almost perfect 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes.