'Top Gun: Maverick' Breaks Streaming Record
Top Gun: Maverick played in theaters for months and has been available on home video since early November, but none of that stopped Tom Cruise from dominating on Paramount+. The film was finally added to the streaming platform on Dec. 22 and has become the most-watched movie ever for Paramount+ in the U.S. The six Mission: Impossible movies also saw a boost, as Cruise fans could not get enough of his death-defying stunts over the holiday weekend.
Maverick easily beat Sonic the Hedgehog's viewership record by 60%, Paramount Global said Wednesday, reports Deadline. The original 1986 Top Gun movie also saw a 400% viewership increase. The Mission: Impossible movies also saw a 140% bump. Paramount Global does not release specific viewership numbers.
"We are thrilled to see a continuation of the film's massive record-breaking success by becoming the #1 most-watched movie premiere on Paramount+," Tanya Giles, Chief Programming Officer at Paramount Streaming, said in a statement. "We continue to benefit from the highly anticipated theatrical hits from Paramount Pictures that come to the service delivering fans a new way to continue to watch and re-watch their favorite movies."
Maverick is also available on Paramount+ in Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the U.K., and Latin America. Subscribers in South Korea and France will get to stream the movie next year. Paramount released Top Gun: Maverick on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4KUltraHD on Nov. 1.
Cruise's refusal to allow Paramount to sell Maverick to streaming platforms during the coronavirus pandemic paid off in a big way for the studio. After it was released on May 27, Maverick easily became the highest-grossing movie of the year. It has reeled in $1.488 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of Cruise's career. Maverick is now fifth on the all-time domestic box office chart, with $718 million.
The new movie picks up over 30 years after the events of the original Top Gun. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Cruise) is still a Navy Captain and is recruited to instruct new Top Gun graduates for a dangerous mission. Miles Teller co-stars as Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, Maverick's friend who died in the 1986 movie. Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, and Glen Powell also star. Joseph Kosinski, who directed Cruise in Oblivion, directed the movie.
Maverick is expected to make a run for the Oscars. The National Board of Review named it the best movie of 2022. The American Film Institute named it one of the 10 best movies of the year, alongside Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Nope, She Said, Tar, The Woman King, and Women Talking.