Steven Spielberg Thinks Tom Cruise And Top Gun: Maverick May Have 'Saved' Theatrical Releases
On Monday, February 13, the Academy Awards hosted a luncheon for its 2023 nominees. It was a pretty typical set up with all the faces you would expect — but then something happened no one saw coming. Steven Spielberg approached "Top Gun: Maverick" star Tom Cruise, who had previously worked with the legendary director on "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds," and told him that his movie "saved" the theatrical release model.
In a video from the event that ended up going viral online, Spielberg told Cruise, "You saved Hollywood's ass, and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously, 'Maverick' might have saved the entire theatrical industry." Cruise seemed to take the comment humbly and shook his head in response.
To be fair, Spielberg does have somewhat of a point about this. Whether or not you like "Top Gun: Maverick," there's no denying the power the film had during its release cycle. Something cinephiles and other folks who love movies and the industry have a tendency to forget is that the coastal areas of the U.S. — New York and Los Angeles, mostly — are full of folks who think of film as an art form and appreciate movies that strive to explore how film can be art. It's the folks in the central U.S. (i.e. folks who are less likely to connect with such "arthouse" films) that are more likely to be all in for an epic Hollywood blockbuster like "Maverick."
Here's the thing: "Maverick" took both of these groups by storm.
The impact of Top Gun: Maverick
It's far from a joke to say that critics and hardcore cinephiles loved "Top Gun: Maverick" just as much as your average Joe. Let's put this in perspective: "Maverick" screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 as an Official Selection, and it received a massive five-minute standing ovation. Additionally, the festival also held a retrospective for Tom Cruise and his work, particularly the original "Top Gun," to complement the screening (which was not a premiere, actually; the film premiered at CinemaCon in April 2022).
Plus, Cannes made sure to show their love for the film wherever and whenever they could — including a massive display complete with a huge screen that looped clips from the film on the main road where the festival is held. I saw the display myself, and it was pretty magical to say the least. The point is that a major arthouse festival in the film world made a ton of room for "Maverick," and it made that room during the festival's monumental 75th anniversary year. It's a pretty major spotlight for a film that doesn't necessarily fall in line with other arthouse-type projects you might see there. That passion for the film bled out into the real world, with film buffs and normies alike flocking to see "Maverick" any chance they got.
The film managed to gross nearly $1.5 billion globally from its theatrical run, and it absolutely got a lot of folks back into the movie theaters who had otherwise taken a pause at the height of the pandemic. So it seems that maybe that Steven Spielberg fella was onto something after all.