Top Gun: Maverick has been an absolute smash hit. Not only is it already the 20th highest grossing movie of all-time at the global box office (and still making money each day), but it is lead actor Tom Cruise's first billion dollar flick. But as for how Top Gun: Maverick rose to such monumental heights, Sony motion picture group presidents Sanford Pantich and Josh Greenstein have talked with Vulture about just this, and have given credit to a completely different movie as part of this reasoning.
"When we first started releasing movies last October, there were really no other big movies. Everyone had pushed their big movies to this year, to this summer," Greenstein says. "We took a big gamble putting Venom in theaters. Then we doubled down with Ghostbusters. Then our biggest bet was when every other tentpole had fled, we tripled down with Spider-Man — our biggest, most important piece of IP."
"There's so much press about Top Gun right now. It's like, The movie business is back!" Panitch says. "In a weird way, I would say Top Gun is benefitting from us taking our shot. Venom is the start of that story that allows Top Gun to do the kind of business it did. These things don't happen overnight. It's a seeding."
The strategy has clearly worked as Top Gun: Maverick as mentioned earlier is the 20th highest grossing movie of all-time right now, whereas Spider-Man: No Way Home ended up sixth in the all-time standings. As for Venom: Let There be Carnage and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, those two movies ended up raking in $500 million and $200 million respectively.