Box Office: ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Smoking Competition With Stunning Projected 33% Drop

variety.com:

J. Kim Murphy Tom Cruise is king at the domestic box office once again.Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” is soaring to the top of the charts for its second weekend of release, drawing in a commanding $25 million on Friday from 4,751 locations.

After enjoying the widest domestic opening last weekend with 4,732 North American cinemas, “Maverick” actually added 19 more for its sophomore outing.The studio is projecting a $84.5 million through Sunday, a stunning 33% dive from its $124 million three-day opening haul.

A soft drop like that is an impressive achievement, especially for a film that opened above $100 million. To compare, recent blockbusters like “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “The Batman” fell 67% and 50.4%, respectively, in their sophomore outings.

Even for a star like Cruise, a drop as low as 33% is largely unheard of in recent years. The actor’s last blockbuster, 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” fell 42.5% in its second weekend after opening to $61.2 million.Word-of-mouth has been spectacular for the sequel, with the film earning a rare “A+” grade on Cinema Score, indicating maximum approval from general ticketbuyers.Paramount expects “Maverick” to expand its domestic gross to $290 million through Sunday.Reunited with his “Oblivion” director Joseph Kosinski, Cruise returns to “Top Gun” as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell to train a new fleet of aviators for a tricky mission.