Nearly seven months after its theatrical debut, “Top Gun: Maverick” will finally hit streaming on December 22, Paramount announced today.
The movie will premiere on Paramount+ in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and across several markets in Europe and Latin America. It will be available in South Korea and France in 2023.
The “Top Gun” sequel’s long theatrical run generated sizeable revenue for Paramount, surpassing $1.4 billion in global box office revenue. The movie also drove a 48% year-over-year revenue increase in Paramount’s filmed entertainment division for the third quarter.
Paramount in its third quarter earnings announced “Top Gun: Maverick” will stream on Paramount+ by year-end, but the company hadn’t disclosed the release date. The film already released digitally in August, before coming to DVD and Blu-ray earlier this month.
Paramount CEO Bob Bakish has touted the company’s strategy with “Top Gun: Maverick” and other theatrical releases, noting Paramount was selective with releasing movies during the onset of Covid-19.
“While we could have released ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and ‘The Lost City’ earlier, we held off because we knew these phenomenal stories would bring audiences back to theaters,” he said on Paramount’s second quarter earnings call.
Paramount uses viewership data from Paramount+ to determine which movies its studio should greenlight, said Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins in September. The company is particularly leaning into franchises, such as “Top Gun,” “Scream” and “Sonic the Hedgehog,” to spur interest in its theatrical releases as well as Paramount’s cable networks.
Paramount has also leveraged the big screen to garner audiences for its “Yellowstone” series, partnering with Showcase Cinemas last month to host a sneak-peek screening ahead of the show’s fifth season premiere.
Netflix is another streamer tapping into the box office. Its sequel to “Knives Out” will play in theaters for one week beginning tomorrow, November 23, through November 29 – followed by a global streaming release on December 23.
While the “Knives Out” sequel isn’t the first Netflix film to hit theaters, other titles have typically had much shorter theatrical windows before debuting on the streaming service.
As for other theatrical releases, Disney’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” saw a record domestic box office opening this month with $180 million in revenue. Disney has yet to announce when the movie will be available to stream on Disney+.