Top Gun: Maverick was released on May 27, 2022. The view here is that the movie was boring, trite, and even quite “woke” despite a popular perception that it trampled on the overused notion. But that’s not the point of this opinion piece.

Good or bad, the astounding box office for Top Gun: Maverick was lucrative evidence that the death of movie theatres had been greatly exaggerated. After the movie’s release, the film industry along with the screened entertainment industry owed Tom Cruise a big thank you.