Skydance and Paramount's Top Gun: Maverick has become the fourth highest-grossing movie this year, leading to a massive challenge for Tom Cruise and his next movie, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. The audience is certainly feeling the need for speed as Top Gun: Maverick is getting universal acclaim along with the astonishing box-office success. The patriotic action drama film marks Tom Cruise's biggest opening weekend at the domestic box office.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One will be the seventh and penultimate installment of the Mission: Impossible film series. The upcoming action movie is currently scheduled to be released on July 14, 2023. Both Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7 suffered from filming and release delays because of the ongoing global pandemic. Due to the lengthy delay of almost four years, Top Gun: Maverick raised debates about its potential box office performance prior to its release. But the uncertainty came to an end when the movie debuted with $126.7M in its opening weekend alone and garnered massive critical praise.

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The widespread acclaim and the commercial success of Top Gun: Maverick have set high standards for Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible 7, which is one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2023. A number of moviegoers and critics alike proclaimed Top Gun: Maverick better than its predecessor, partly due to the tight story and the eye-popping aerial stunts, which were done practically. The actor will face a massive challenge next year, as the standard has now been set for another major blockbuster and a remarkably written entertainer from Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One to match Maverick.

Top Gun Maverick Tom Cruise Jets

The stunt-loving Tom Cruise has built his reputation as a true action star and is known for doing some of the most intense and dangerous stunt sequences in his movies. In Top Gun: Maverick, he pilots a P-51 propeller-driven fighter plane and several helicopters. The most impressive thing, however, is that he and the cast actually shot the aerial scenes in the real F-18 Hornet fighter jets, and not on green screen, leading to some breathtaking sequences. The seventh installment of the Mission: Impossible series promises one of the most daring stunts from the star, as the trailers have shown Cruise riding a motorcycle off a cliff before parachuting to the ground. The Mission: Impossible franchise has been known for its ever more impressive stunts, and Cruise himself is known for always wanting to push the envelope. Now, with Maverick's thrilling action, Mission: Impossible 7 has a lot to live up to.

The unequivocal box office success of Top Gun: Maverick solidifies Tom Cruise's position as arguably the last bona fide old-school movie star in Hollywood. Cruise's filmography boasts of several blockbusters, but like most A-list actors, he has not been immune to the box-office failures. While that almost certainly will not be the case with Mission: Impossible 7, Cruise has set a new high water standard for himself. It remains to be seen whether he can fly as high as Top Gun: Maverick's Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell with Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One next year.

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