Tom Cruise’s Top Gun sequel Maverick is the biggest open in Cruise’s long, lucrative career.

The 59-year-old superstar just got his first $100 million opening weekend with “Top Gun: Maverick.” In its first three days in North American theaters, the long-in-the-works sequel earned an estimated $124 million in ticket sales, Paramount Pictures said Sunday. Including international showings, its worldwide total is $248 million…“These results are ridiculously, over-the-top fantastic,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. “I’m happy for everyone. I’m happy for the company, for Tom, for the filmmakers.”

Was it because it was the first post-Pandemic tentpole picture?

But even as the months, and years, went by and many other companies chose to compromise on hybrid releases, Cruise and Paramount didn’t waver on their desire to have a major theatrical release. A streaming debut was simply not an option.

“That was never going to happen,” Cruise said in Cannes.

Was it because the pandemic gave it a three year marketing runway?

“This is one of the longest runways for a marketing campaign for any film ever. And it only served to create more excitement around the movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “This movie literally waited for the movie theater to come back.”

Was it because it wasn’t another Godforsaken comic book superhero movie? Truth be told, that’s almost enough reason to go to Maverick all by itself. The endless comic book franchise is living evidence of Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy. I haven’t been to one since the first X-Men and Spiderman (the Toby McGuire/Kirsten Dunst one) movies.

Or could it be because it’s the first tentpole movie since American Sniper that isn’t an endless parade of woke tropes, a movie that isn’t afraid to show masculinity, merit, patriotism and military values as virtues rather than punch lines?

Fearless prediction: look for Woke Hollywood to try to simultaneously undercut and exploit this.