Tom Cruise made his onscreen debut 41 years ago via a small role in romantic drama Endless Love, and he’s reigned as one of the biggest stars in the industry for 36 of them, which is nothing short of mind-blowing. Up until today, the three highest-grossing movies of his career (and five of the top six) saw him risking his neck as Ethan Hunt in a Mission: Impossible blockbuster, but that’s all changed thanks to the massive success of Top Gun: Maverick.
The acclaimed sequel has crossed the $800 million barrier at the box office, surpassing the $787 million of Christopher McQuarrie’s M:I sequel Fallout to go down as the most commercially successful hit in the leading man’s long, distinguished, and highly illustrious filmography.
You can understand why Cruise laughed at the mere notion of seeing Maverick sold off to streamers during the pandemic, but even then, it’s hard to imagine that even someone as confident as the 59 year-old megastar would have envisioned Joseph Kosinski’s spectacular return to the skies hitting the heights that it has.
Maverick shows absolutely no signs of slowing down after three weeks in theaters, and there’s a real possibility that it could comfortably become Cruise’s maiden billion-dollar smash. Once again, he’s reaffirmed his credentials as a proven draw capable of putting butts in seats all over the world, although it definitely helps that Top Gun 2 is one of 2022’s best films so far, with a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards not out of the question by a long shot.