A-lister Tom Cruise has the biggest hit film of his career — and one of the biggest in the history of Hollywood — on his hands with the sequel smash “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Even more amazing, Cruise achieved the record release status without kowtowing to communist China, unlike other famous Americans including former pro wrestler and current actor John Cena and NBA star LeBron James.
Cruise and the film’s other producers would not back down from China’s demand they remove a reference to Taiwan – a Taiwanese flag on Cruise’s flight jacket in the film.
Meanwhile, earlier, James and the NBA caved to China as did John Cena. The movie Cena was promoting when he groveled an apology to Beijing in Chinese was “F9: The Fast Saga,” the latest in the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise.
F9’s box office numbers: DOMESTIC $173,005,945, WORLDWIDE $726,229,501, CHINA $216,935,282. According to the earlier this month, the NBA lost hundred of millions even after caving to China:
The NBA lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue following a 2019 fallout with China, league Commissioner Adam Silver said this week. The conflict arose when then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey expressed support for anti-government Hong Kong protestors.
Morey, now general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, tweeted in October 2019 an image reading, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”
He later deleted the tweet, but China still responded by pulling NBA games off CCTV for 18 months – a significant blow to the league’s decades-long partnership overseas. China began airing games again in late March.
So far, Cruise’s hit sequel has made $401.8 million at the box office in North American ticket sales alone and just passed “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($398 million) to become the #1 movie of the year.
The movie has taken in also brought in $362 million internationally (without the Chinese market) to bring its global total to a staggering $783.8 million. And as ticket sales continue to be brisk, many movie industry analysts think the film will cross $900 million and get close to $1 billion in sales.
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