Top Gun: Maverick becomes Tom Cruise's first movie to fly past $1 billion

He's arguably the biggest movie star in the world and has achieved everything from scaling the Burj Khalifa to freefalling a bike off a cliff. It's therefore surprising to note that Tom Cruise has never made a billion-dollar movie. Until now.

Top Gun: Maverick has become Cruise's first movie to blast through the $1 billion barrier, making history in the process. It's remarkable when one considers that he has six Mission: Impossible movies under his belt. (The seventh, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, is due for release in 2023.)

Box Office Mojo reports that Top Gun: Maverick is the first movie release of 2022 to achieve this goal. Also, it's just the second movie released during the COVID pandemic to attain the coveted billion-dollar goal. 

Maverick has toppled Cruise's previous high-earner, 2018's Mission: Impossible - Fallout, to become his biggest global hit to date. It goes to show that audiences were more than willing to take the highway into the danger zone.

Praised for its nostalgic references to the past, emotion and IMAX-lensed, face-defying aerial combat sequences, Top Gun: Maverick has emerged as a big screen experience to remember. (In case you missed it, check out the Cineworld Leicester Square premiere highlights.)

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