Top Gun: Maverick was a massive success for Tom Cruise at the box office, and its record-breaking status includes setting a new milestone for the actor, even though it was not intentional. As a sequel to 1986’s Top Gun, the wait to see Tom Cruise return as Maverick lasted much longer than anticipated. However, the movie’s release proved that audiences were as eager as ever to experience this world again. Top Gun: Maverick broke box office records throughout the course of its theatrical run, such as becoming Tom Cruise’s highest-grossing movie. There were many factors behind this success, but they were not all expected.

The $1.4 billion box office haul for Top Gun: Maverick was celebrated for what it meant in a post-pandemic landscape for Hollywood. It received praise for helping to save the movie industry, as it became a major example of audiences still being interested in coming to theaters to experience something that felt fresh, even if it was part of a well-known franchise. It became a very personal movie for Tom Cruise in that regard. His decision to return as Maverick after 36 years made Top Gun: Maverick a record-setting experience in terms of the gap between playing the same role, but there was another record unintentionally broken.

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By the time Top Gun: Maverick was released in theaters, it had been four years since Tom Cruise’s last movie. Audiences were largely thrilled and dazzled by Cruise’s previous movie, 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout. This created an even greater demand to see Top Gun: Maverick, but repeated delays changed how long audiences had to wait to see the action star again. The sequel was meant to be released in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down movie theaters. Cruise’s disinterest in releasing Top Gun: Maverick on streaming saw the movie hold out for a full theatrical release two years later.

Waiting until 2022 to release Top Gun: Maverick means audiences experienced the largest drought in Tom Cruise’s career between new movies. The biggest gap previously came to an end 23 years prior in 1999. The three-year wait between movies came as he starred in Mission: Impossible and Jerry Maguire in 1996, but productions for Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia kept him out of theaters until 1999. The irony with Top Gun: Maverick setting this new Tom Cruise record is that it was not intentional. If the pandemic did not happen, his usual pace of appearing in a movie roughly every year would have continued.

Tom Cruise’s Movie Drought Helped Top Gun: Maverick’s Record-Breaking Box Office

Top Gun: Maverick‘s box office run was much bigger than most anticipated, and it is fair to attribute at least a part of the formula for success to Tom Cruise’s absence from the big screen. The A-list actor is a major box office draw and someone audiences have become accustomed to seeing routinely star in major blockbusters that offer thrilling action. Mission: Impossible – Fallout was arguably the pinnacle of that idea, making viewers even more excited to see what he could accomplish next. The practical jet-flying sequences in Top Gun: Maverick helped spark interest, but so too was the chance to see a movie star of Cruise’s caliber again.

This is not to say that Top Gun: Maverick would not have been successful without being the end of Tom Cruise’s longest movie drought. The movie’s excellent reviews, thrilling flying sequences, and a perfectly timed release date all helped contribute to the film becoming a $1.4 billion box office force. However, the long-awaited return of Cruise as Maverick was undeniably a significant factor. The fact that audiences had to wait several more years than initially expected and had no Tom Cruise movies to fill the void meant the demand for Top Gun: Maverick became even greater.

Tom Cruise Won’t Have Another Massive Movie Absence Anytime Soon

Tom Cruise is one of the busiest actors in Hollywood, and it is not his preference to be missing for too long. Before Top Gun: Maverick‘s delays, the actor was on a nine-year streak of appearing in at least one movie per year. Cruise typically attempts to have a new movie in theaters every single year, or only have one vacant year between them. He followed up Top Gun: Maverick the next year with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, while Mission: Impossible 8 will come two years later after its own delays. Meanwhile, Cruise is known to have several other projects in various stages of development.

This will help ensure that audiences and theaters do not experience another massive Tom Cruise movie drought in the immediate future. He has enough movie ideas confirmed to be in development to keep him busy through the start of 2030, and there is always the chance that other new opportunities will arise. For that reason, it would be quite unexpected if audiences had to wait more than four years between Tom Cruise movies and break the drought record Top Gun: Maverick ended.