After several Covid delays and last week’s European premiere in Cannes preceded by a spectacular fly-over above the Palais des Festivals, Top Gun: Maverick heads into a four-day North American Memorial Day opening weekend estimated at $151 million and set a new record for Tom Cruise.

Paramount opened the tentpole in 4,732 theaters and the session included approximately $124 million on the Friday-Sunday portion of the US Memorial Day holiday. Remarkably, this becomes the first film of Cruise’s career to open over $100 million and easily surpassed his previous best of $64 million set by War of the Worlds in 2005.

It’s also producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s second-biggest debut and may yet revise 2007’s. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End $153 million to mark the biggest Memorial Day opening weekend of four days once numbers are confirmed on Tuesday.

The Paramount-Skydance action sequel to Tony Scott’s 1986 pop culture classic grossed $19.3 million in Thursday previews and followed with $51.8 million on Friday. maverickin which Cruise reprises his role as a brilliant Navy test pilot who must now train a new class of hotshots to execute a dangerous mission in enemy territory, scored around $124 million internationally for an overall take of 248 millions of dollars.

maverick over-indexed in the US West, Rockies, South-Central and Southeast US, played as expected in the Midwest, and under-indexed in the Northeast. Top over-indexed markets included Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Diego, Tampa, Portland, Nashville and Jacksonville, while top under-indexed markets included New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore.

The top-grossing theaters came from a diverse geographic spread, including Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, San Antonio, Knoxville, Denver, Dallas, Washington DC, Seattle, Phoenix, Fresno, and Orlando. Canada produced 7.1% market share from approximately 8% of the total number of locations.

Premium format screens accounted for 22% of the overall box office while Imax screens delivered 15%. By demographics, maverick attracted an audience of 58% men and 42% women. Around 45% of the audience was under 35, with 18-24 year olds accounting for 21%, the largest segment.

The film’s release campaign kicked off in July 2019 at San Diego Comic-Con when Tom Cruise made a surprise appearance in Hall H to debut the first trailer. Paramount showed the film to attendees at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April ahead of the world premiere in early May in San Diego.

There was a premiere in Mexico accompanied by a live orchestra and a guitar solo on the red carpet and live on Tik-tok; Royal Film Performance in London attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with a takeover of Leicester Square with a fighter jet on the carpet; and an Imax screening in Japan at Yokohama Osanbashi Pier with fireworks.

Joseph Kosinski directed Top Gun: Maverick and the cast includes Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, Val Kilmer and Ed Harris.