Top Gun Proves It's Too Early to Bury Cinema-Going Experience
Looks like Tom Cruise saved the world one more time, but in real life.
The COVID pandemic has affected almost every aspect of our lives and changed the world in some way, which could not help but affect the film industry.
More and more films have been moving across platforms to make some money off the budget, as theater attendance has plummeted due to COVID restrictions. When the restrictions were lifted, the downward trend in movie attendance continued, and started to believe that this was the end of the cinema-going era.
In such a challenging time for the industry, Tom Cruise had returned to his role as Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell to co-produce the sequel to the first Top Gun movie released in 1986. In addition, Cruise and the filmmakers decided not to release the film on streaming platforms at all, only going for a theatrical release, which seemed like an extremely risky move.
We already know the result — the film became the second after Spider-Man: No Way Home to collect more than $1 billion worldwide in the pandemic era, and also took 11th place in the list of the highest-grossing films in history.
It's also impressive that superhero movies like Spider-Man have consistently done well during the COVID lockdown, while Top Gun is an adult drama that didn't seem to have that much of a financial potential at first glance.
Such success quickly prompted reaction from the top Hollywood personalities such as Steven Spielberg. According to the iconic director, Top Gun: Maverick might have "saved the entire theatrical industry". Spielberg also expressed gratitude to Cruise personally.
"You saved Hollywood's ass and you might have saved theatrical distribution," Spielberg told Cruise in a viral video.
While many have focused only on the film's financial success, Top Gun's director Joseph Kosinski noted that it's important to remember that the film was not made primarily with the idea of making money, but with the desire to create the highest quality film product that audiences would appreciate. Well, we're just glad we got both.