Jerry Bruckheimer & His Reign Over Memorial Day Box Office With ‘Top Gun 2’; Whether There’s A 3rd Pic & Next ‘National Treasure’ Movie

deadline.com:

Jerry Bruckheimer has plenty to celebrate over Memorial Day weekend, literally watching the long-awaited sequel to 1986’s Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, beat his previous domestic box office opening record for the holiday previously set by 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

The Paramount/Skydance co-production easily won the record Memorial Day opening at the B.O. with $156M (which included previews), unseating Pirates 3‘s $153M opening.Outside of any delay created by the pandemic, why the world had to wait 36 years for the further adventures of Tom Cruise’s Capt.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Bruckheimer tells Deadline it all boiled down to Joseph Kosinski’s pitch to the superstar during the production of Mission: Impossible – Fallout. “This was the time that it was going to happen,” says Bruckheimer about why the sequel arrived now in theaters versus, say one or two decades ago.“It never really got that close; we never had a script, never had ideas” says the blockbuster producer about the sequel before Kosinski approached it.“Joe went to Paris where Tom was shooting Mission: Impossible; he had a look book and a poster,” remembers the producer. “He wanted to make sure to do everything right including shooting in the jets with the actors.”“Tom lit up, and called the head of Paramount and that started the ball rolling,” adds Bruckheimer.Top Gun 2‘s opening is easily the best for Kosinski, and of course, natch, Cruise; the actor’s previous global record start being The Mummy ($172.3M) and his previous record domestic opening being War of the Worlds with $64.8M.On the first Top Gun, there was a push to shoot the actors flying in live jets as well, but “their eyes rolled back in their heads; they couldn’t handle the G