Last I checked in on Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the Tom Cruise fighter-jets-go-fast ’80s cheesefest, it was to note how good a movie it was (better than the original), and how its international success despite not opening in China (or Russia) should send a message to Hollywood. In recent decades, Hollywood had made an increasing play for the Chinese market, resulting in a proliferation of the sort of big-budget spectacle that translates easily, and, quite frequently, in outright censorship of movie elements that were politically sensitive to the Chinese Communist Party. (Eric Schwartzel tells this story in the excellent Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy.)
Top Gun: Maverick has none of this. This has, if anything, benefited the old-fashioned, unwoke, CGI-complemented-not-CGI-dependent blockbuster, which is inching toward $700 million in the U.S. with the kind of sustained, week-over-week performance that is quite unusual in a time of frontloaded blockbusters. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, for example, just ended its run a little over $400 million in the U.S., nearly half of which it made in its opening weekend.
Top Gun: Maverick‘s firm yet unforced pro-American themes, moreover, have not hurt it at the global box office, where it has currently outperformed its domestic take, at over $700 million worldwide. Its four biggest overseas markets: the United Kingdom ($97.2 million), Japan ($82 million), South Korea ($62.8 million), and Australia ($61.6 million). This corresponds well with some of America’s best military partnerships (some of the best allies anyone would want to have). And three of them have a rather pointed interest in checking Chinese-communist aggression, given their proximity.
We hear a lot these days about China’s growing global influence and its increasing cultural assertiveness. It’s true that the country produces its own blockbusters now, jingoistic propaganda films such as The Battle at Lake Changjin, which portrays a key battle in the Korean War from the Chinese perspective. That movie was wildly successful in China itself . . . but nowhere else. Forget this nonsense about the U.S., China, and Russia being “civilizational equals.” Fact is, the world just isn’t very interested in the way the CCP is selling itself abroad. But Top Gun: Maverick‘s marriage of American military might with American cultural power — the world seems very interested in that. At a time when many seem to have given up on the U.S. and its position in the world, there might be a lesson in this.