Sony executives think Venom: Let There Be Carnage and other films released by the studio deserve some credit for Top Gun: Maverick's box office success. Originally slated for release in May 2020, Top Gun: Maverick was delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It finally opened in theaters on May 27 and has been a runaway hit ever since. It's become the highest-grossing film of 2022, the highest-grossing film of Tom Cruise's career, and overtook Titanic's original box office total to become Paramount Pictures' most successful film of all time. Top Gun 2 has earned $1.22 billion worldwide to date.
It's an incredible box office story, particularly because just one year ago there was a question of if theatrical movie-going would ever return to pre-pandemic highs. 2021 was a testing ground for movies returning to theaters and an attempt at keeping the theatrical experience alive. One of the surprise winners of 2021 was Sony Pictures, as in the final three months of the year they had a winning streak with Venom: Let There Be Carnage in October, Ghostbusters: Afterlife in November, and Spider-Man: No Way Home in December. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the highest-grossing film since theaters shut down in March 2020, with Top Gun: Maverick right behind it.
Yet despite all the praise and attention Sony got for Spider-Man: No Way Home's incredible box office run, it appears that the studio's execs think they deserve more praise for the record-breaking run of Paramount's Top Gun: Maverick. While speaking with Vulture, Sony’s Motion Picture Group presidents Sanford Panitch and Josh Greenstein emphasize how they took a chance releasing films in 2021 while most studios delayed their titles to the summer of 2022. Read there quotes below:
Josh Greenstein: When we first started releasing movies last October, there were really no other big movies. Everyone had pushed their big movies to this year, to this summer. We took a big gamble putting Venom in theaters. Then we doubled down with Ghostbusters. Then our biggest bet was when every other tentpole had fled, we tripled down with Spider-Man — our biggest, most important piece of IP.
Sanford Panitch: There’s so much press about Top Gun right now. It’s like, The movie business is back! In a weird way, I would say Top Gun is benefitting from us taking our shot. Venom is the start of that story that allows Top Gun to do the kind of business it did. These things don’t happen overnight. It’s a seeding.
Sony Pictures certainly was the king of the 2021 box office. Venom: Let There Be Carnage opened with $90.1 million to become the biggest opening weekend following the COVID-19 shutdown, only to be overtaken by their own film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, just two months later. There were plenty of other films that showed audiences were willing to come out to a theater in 2021, like Disney's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Universal's F9, and Warner Bros. Dune. However, while Sony did sell films like Fatherhood and Hotel Transylvania: Transformania to other streamers (as they don't have one themselves), Sony was very focused on getting their biggest properties in theaters.
However, to say that Sony deserves credit for what Top Gun: Maverick is doing now might be a stretch. The Cruise-led film is operating in a vastly different market, and its status as a legacy sequel has helped pull in audiences of all ages. Sony certainly helped make a splash at the box office when the industry sorely needed it, but Top Gun: Maverick is doing incredible business on its own merits. Both of these things can be true. While Top Gun: Maverick is getting all the headlines it rightfully deserves, films like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Venom: Let There Be Carnage will certainly be looked back on fondly as reminders that the death of the theatrical experience was greatly exaggerated.
Source: Vulture