Tom Cruise’s new movie “Maverick” did another fly-by this weekend in theaters and the Disney enterprise was shaking at its foundations.
Cruise’s second coming as Peter “Maverick” Mitchell raked in over 7 million this week, at it is in its 12 weeks of release. It is now threatening to knock Disney/Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War” off its perch as the 6th most grossing film of all time.
This is what was printed in Variety magazine this week:
“With the dismal turnout for most other movies, Paramount’s ever-powerful blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” swooped to second place in its 12th weekend of release. The action sequel continues to do unprecedented business, adding $7.1 million from 3,181 venues over the weekend and bringing its domestic tally to $673.8 million. That means “Maverick” is roughly $5 million away from dethroning Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War” as the sixth-highest grossing movie in domestic box office history.
It is likely that this movie will close the gap and take the position away from Disney, especially if the movie houses pick it back up.
Let’s take a deeper look at this movie. The storyline is basic, there’s no digital magic in the film like in the Marvel franchise. It’s not going to win any kudos for its marketing campaign.
But “Infinity War” was the culmination of years of Disney/Marvel building characters and planning storylines. It had a massive amount of digital magic. This seems like a story of David and Goliath as people continue to shell out money to go into otherwise vacant movie theaters.
One commentary on the phenomenon movie said, “After years of Hollywood shoving ‘the message’ down our throats at every turn, ‘Maverick’ was a return to normalcy. It didn’t preach or pander. It was just a solid tale with solid acting and great cinematography. It was a movie that reminded us that movies could be good.”
Maybe Disney is watching and will see that people will come to see a movie that has a good story to tell without telling people how to live their lives.
