It’s no secret that Hollywood is scrambling to stay relevant in the age of social media and streaming. The industry took a massive hit during the pandemic, with some movie theaters shut down for good.
But once they reopened, what did we get? A stream of expensive “Blockbusters” loaded with woke propaganda. They would end up number one at the box office (because of little competition) but quickly faded over subsequent weekends.
This was the state of movies when, over Memorial Day weekend, a long-awaited sequel to Top Gun premiered. As you would have expected, the movie was number one in its first opening weekend. But, thanks to Cruise’s star power and its pro-America theme, it defied expectations.
Gun: Maverick is once again the No. 1 movie in North America, earning an additional $86 million in receipts in its second weekend, BoxOfficeMojo.com announced Sunday.
Tom Cruise’s latest action flick set a new record of $156 million for the four-day Memorial Day weekend last weekend. [Source: Breitbart]
Not only was a movie that celebrated our military number one for a second weekend (a hard feat as that is), but it’s drop off was very small. It earned $86 million in its second weekend, a drop of only 31%.
Ordinarily, even big movies see massive declines in ticket sales after opening weekend. Even Marvel blockbusters see drops as painful as 50-60%. But Top Gun: Maverick is neither a comic book nor sci-fi flick. It is a sequel to a movie from the 1980s—and its earned as much as a heavily-promoted Disney film.
Much of its success is being attributed to word-of-mouth. It appears fans of this film are telling friends to go and see it. Perhaps it has something to do with, not only Tom Cruise’s charm, but the fact this movie lacks the typical left-wing message aimed at hitting you over the head.
Even a film as bizarre as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had to add a scene with a lesbian couple (who were also moms) just to remind you of the studio’s political allegiance. But Top Gun went out of its way to avoid look “woke.” Fans were suspicious when early promotions revealed Cruise’s character was missing the Taiwanese flag patch from the original film.
Viewers speculated that the studio replaced it, in order not to offend Chinese audiences. But once they realized American fans were upset, they restored the Taiwanese flag, China be damned.
That kind of boldness deserves some kind of recognition. And fans gave it, in the form a huge box office returns.
Author: Mac Davis
