Top Gun: Maverick is continuing its relentless climb up the box office charts and is now poised to beat a record set by Avengers: Infinity War. The film is a decades-later follow-up to the hit 1986 film Top Gun, which was directed by Tony Scott and was the #1 highest-grossing movie that year. The new film was helmed by Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski from a screenplay by Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle), Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), and Christopher McQuarrie (the director of the Mission: Impossible films Rogue Nation, Fallout, and the upcoming Dead Reckoning parts 1 and 2). The massive ensemble cast includes Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Danny Ramirez, Jay Ellis, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer reprising the role of Iceman.

Top Gun: Maverick features the return of original star Tom Cruise as the hotshot pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. In spite of his mercurial nature, he is still the best pilot around and has been brought on to train a whole new crop of pilots to prepare them for an imminent mission. These new pilots include Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's fallen comrade Goose, who died during the events of the original film. Rooster blames Maverick for his father's death, which leads to some major complications between the pilot and his new student.

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Per THR, Top Gun: Maverick is rising back up the box office charts yet again this weekend to add an additional $6.6 million to its domestic haul. Unthinkably, even though this is the film's twelfth weekend, it has managed to beat out the new releases Bodies Bodies Bodies and Fall, nearly reaching half of the weekend gross of the Brad Pitt actioner Bullet Train, which is in its second weekend. This resurgence in the box office, paired with a slow August ahead, means that the film is projected to surpass $700 million domestic, which would allow it to knock Avengers: Infinity War (which had a domestic gross of $678.8 million) from its perch as the #6 highest-grossing film of all time in the United States.

Tom Cruise as Maverick

This take for Maverick is unprecedented, blowing the box office of the original film completely out of the water. That film made a total of $176.8 million in 1986, which is still only $477.9 million when adjusted for inflation. The fact that the new film is improving on its predecessor in leaps and bounds could be for any number of reasons, including the buildup of three and a half decades of nostalgia, but it is also likely due to Cruise and McQuarrie's continued commitment to push the boundaries of practical stunts in their collaborations.

Top Gun: Maverick is a spectacle of a film, but its box office run is nearly as impressive to witness. Even in a time when new films are constantly breaking records, the pandemic era has resulted in an exceedingly unpredictable box office in the past two and a half years. Yet, Top Gun continues to beat the odds time and again. Although it seems unlikely considering how long it's already been in theaters, it just may be the case that the film continues to climb up the domestic charts, approaching other top contenders like Black Panther, Avatar, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Source: THR