He’s crushing the box office and, as an added bonus, now he’s #1 on Netflix to boot. Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 original, has finally taken flight, with box office receipts so strong that it’s given Cruise the first $100 million opening weekend of his long career.
Meanwhile, the beloved classic that this new film is based on has also earned a distinction of its own. As of the time of this writing on Monday, May 30, the original Top Gun also happens to be the #1 movie on Netflix in the US.
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Classic Tom Cruise movie is #1 on Netflix
The vast majority of you have probably seen it already or at least clips from it. It’s definitely worth a re-watch, though, especially if you’re going to venture out to a cinema near you to check out the sequel. In it, Cruise plays Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a renegade pilot who enters, as Netflix’s description notes, “an elite combat training school where he finds fierce competition, a heated romance, and danger lurking in the skies.”
It’s one of the most well-known roles of Tom Cruise’s career. And it’s no wonder that people would be flocking to the original now that the sequel has finally hit theaters.
Top Gun at #1 is also a good reminder, by the way, of the ongoing rankings that live inside the Netflix app. Each day in the app, users can find a row of content within both the TV and movie categories. The positioning in those rows changes regularly. But what you’ll see within them is a Top 10 ranking of the most-streamed content in the US at any given moment, for movies as well as TV shows.
Other top movies on Netflix right now, in addition to Top Gun at #1, include Rebel Wilson’s hit comedy Senior Year (which is holding strong at #2 right now).
How much did the original Top Gun movie make?
The original Top Gun, meanwhile, grossed an impressive $176 million in 1986, according to Forbes data. In 2022 dollars, that would be around $420 million.
No surprise, the sequel is posting blockbuster numbers already. Top Gun: Maverick pulled in a reported $124 million from 4,732 North American cinemas over the weekend. The action-adventure is expected to collect $151 million through Monday. That means, according to our sister publication Variety, that it’s “defying expectations while also looking to set a new high-water mark for Memorial Day opening weekends.”
Reviews have been likewise strong. The Top Gun sequel has a near-perfect audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (99 percent) as of the time of this writing. That’s based on more than 5,000 verified ratings so far. Critics have been just as laudatory, with the score there currently standing at 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 327 reviews right now).
More Netflix coverage: For more Netflix news, check out the latest new Netflix movies and series to watch.
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