“Top Gun: Maverick” has just reached 5 million admissions in France and has already largely exceeded the billion dollar mark raised in the United States. Decryption of a phenomenon.
“When films are made for the big screen, with sound, images, this experience is unique, especially when it is shared. Cinema is my passion, I always go to see films, I put on a cap to go incognito, I watch trailers, I spend time with exhibitors. I love them too much, I’m going to make them a new “Mission: Impossible”. I started producing the films out of necessity, first to do things the way I wanted, that’s what I like. Making movies is my dream, it’s my passion”, thus spoke Tom Cruise, the American superstar in the temple of auteur cinema, the Cannes Film Festival on May 18 . It was the day of the presentation of “Top Gun: Maverick” on the Croisette and no one, except the person concerned, would have bet a dollar on the fact that the sequel to the cult film of an entire generation, that of the “boomers”, would convince audiences aged 7 to 77 to return en masse to rooms. The box office numbers are out of this world. “Top Gun: Maverick” has crossed the five million admissions mark in France, trumpeted Paramount on Monday. It will also exceed the $600 million mark on North American soil and will certainly end the year at the top of the global box office, the time that James Cameron’s “Avatar” sequel unfolds in all the territories.
He almost single-handedly halted the drop in cinema attendance
According to CNC figures, since the start of the year, French theaters have totaled 72.95 million admissions, or 30.6% less than over the same period of 2019, the last pre-Covid year (-30 ,2% compared to the 2017-2019 average), but, due to the “Top Gun: Maverick” effect, cinema attendance reached 10.86 million admissions in June 2022, i.e. a level below that recorded pre-crisis but close to it (-13.0% compared to June 2019, -4.6% compared to the 2017-2019 average). This is clear proof that beyond the link between the attendance crisis and the decline in French purchasing power and the new competition from platforms, the general public has not abandoned the cinema in the halls, if the show offered lives up to expectations.
It is of course easier to analyze the reasons for a success after the latter. An explosive cocktail between the nostalgia of a soaring youth and the twirling experience of the illusion of being a fighter pilot, “Top Gun: Maverick” stood out from the competition of Marvel films by targeting all audiences and not young and old teenagers. Better still, by presenting “Top Gun” at Cannes, the perfectionist Tom Cruise made the blockbuster an auteur film, his own in any case, a work closely linked to his own trajectory, an eternal star who never seems to age. Like Jean-Paul Belmondo or Jackie Chan before him, Tom Cruise has the reputation of doing his stunts himself and it is also this “generosity” that makes him unique, especially in the era of green screens and interchangeable actors. There is no doubt that the next “Mission: Impossible” scheduled for a theatrical release in 2023, with a scene shot in the international space station, will be a hit at the box office. And let it be said, you will never see Tom Cruise in a film directly considered for a streaming platform.
Nevertheless, if “Top Gun: Maverick” has given a smile to exhibitors around the world, the battle for the return of the public to theaters has not yet been won. The latest figures are encouraging, with a better than expected Film Festival, driven by “Les Minions 2” (3.2 million admissions in France in four days, up from the years before the Covid-19 crisis). 19), but the whole remains fragile, especially since Disney has announced that it will not be releasing its next animated film “Strange World” in French theaters, due to the so-called media chronology regulations which prevent it from being released. would force you to wait seventeen months before being able to offer the film to subscribers to its Disney + platform.