Even though the momentum of superhero movies doesn't seem to be slowing, audiences and critics are becoming increasingly more vocal about how repetitive and formulaic the genre can be. Recently, several prominent directors have voiced their concerns about how superhero movies, armed with absurd budgets, are crippling the potential for studios to greenlight smaller pictures. However, with the superhero genre serving as the most consistent blockbuster framework in modernity, studios are hesitant to abandon them.
Tom Cruise has gone out of his way to avoid superhero movies like the plague. Although initially linked to donning the Iron Man armor years before Robert Downey Jr became synonymous with Tony Stark, Cruise has almost made abstaining from superhero films a point of personal pride. At the time, it seemed foolish to bet against superhero movies, but now Tom Cruise might be having the last laugh.
Top Gun: Maverick has officially dethroned Avengers: Infinity War at the domestic box office to become the sixth highest-grossing film of all time.
The milestones keep rolling in. After 13 weeks on the big screen, "Top Gun: Maverick" has collected $683 million in North America, enough to overtake Marvel's "Avengers: Infinity War" ($678 million) as the sixth-highest grossing movie in domestic box office history. It's an especially impressive benchmark because 2018's every-hero-but-the-kitchen-sink adventure "Avengers: Infinity War" had a little help in building up anticipation. It served as part one (2019's "Endgame" was part two) of Marvel's epic culmination of more than 20 movies — most of which were box office juggernauts in their own right — over 10 years. Talk about hype.
Correction: Infinity War, not Endgame.
