Return Of The Movie Star: The May JustWatch Top 10

Much ink has been spilled on the return of the so-called “last movie star” in one Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, leaping back onto the silver screen this past weekend in the long-awaited insta-blockbuster navy recruitment video Top Gun: Maverick. While the 59-year-old does seem to be one of the world’s last stars who can reliably “open” a certain strain of picture, recent evidence points to the fact that there are other impossibly good-looking people out there that audiences still want to see, whether or not they’re wearing superhero tights, beyond Jerry Maguire. One week into its theatrical run, Maverick is already a smash. The flick broke domestic records for both all-time Memorial Day opening weekends — unadjusted for inflation ($160.5 million) — and Tom Cruise three-day opening weekends ($126.7 million, almost doubling the next-closest Cruise opening). After just one week, the high-flying Jerry Bruckheimer-produced action sequel has already made $330.6 million at the international box office. Though the second Top Gun movie is riding a wave of nostalgia (and glowing reviews, it should be noted), its success seems to signify interest in movies beyond just superhero fare, giving movie theaters some hope that they can rally post-coronavirus vaccine.

Cruise has certainly dominated multiplexes as a major box office draw longer than almost any actor this side of Clint Eastwood. Trust me, you’d be stunned at how much money The Mule made. Lately, the man with the megawatt grin has generally transitioned away from portraying the arrogant jerks who defined the first, more interesting half of his filmography (the lone notable exception in the last decade was the time-looping arrogant jerk army PR officer he played in Edge of Tomorrow). Instead, Cruise has preferred to play a bunch of iterations of the same thing — Jesus Christ, World Weary Action Star, a relatively asexual, saintly superhuman who proves to be eerily infallible while pulling off a variety of death-defying real-life stunts and being “the best.” I’m not the first person to notice. While his charisma can sell just about anything, it is a shame that TC hasn’t been stretching a ton as a performer lately — or even just riffing on his patented Vincent Lauria persona a few more times (this author highly recommends that pool hall, by the way).

I digress. Tom Cruise is not the last movie star. Is he now perhaps once again the biggest? Maybe. Granted, plenty of popular names anchor the big comic book properties these days. That doesn’t make those performers necessarily bankable sans the iconic costumes. People flock to theaters, pandemic or no pandemic, to see Batman, not Robert Pattinson (a fine actor). As The Ringer’s Big Picture podcast notes, a lot of Cruise’s contemporaries are now more than comfortable working on streaming exclusives and even — gasp — TV shows. Tom Hanks hops between Apple TV+ projects and theatrical fare. Julia Roberts is working in a variety of premium TV series, via Amazon Prime Video and Starz. Last year, Denzel Washington starred in a prestigious, Best Picture-nominated drama, directed by one of the best filmmakers of the last 40 years, that went straight to Apple TV+. Reese Witherspoon is raking in massive cash on an Apple TV+ newsroom drama. Leonardo DiCaprio just starred in his first big straight-to-Netflix movie, the excellent Don’t Look Up. These stars can still command a respectable amount of eyeballs in theaters when the project is right, but seem comfortable toggling between formats. Not so for Tom Cruise, who has doubled down on the theatrical experience lately.

All that said, as both the box office receipts and the latest JustWatch top 10 chart (tracking user interest in titles via the site’s search engine) from May 2022 would indicate, Tom Cruise is not the only hot shot left on the block. In May, the original 1986 Top Gun was the most-searched movie stateside on JustWatch, the go-to platform to find the best streaming options for virtually every movie and show. Fans, it seemed, wanted to put on their Ray Bans, grab their beach volleyballs and fly into the original danger zone before gearing up for Peter “Maverick” Mitchell’s newest aerial adventure. Accordingly, the first movie is currently the fourth-most-popular flick streaming on Prime Video as of this writing.

Taking audiences’ breaths away just beneath the original Tony Scott classic, while getting far less press, is the work of another massive and long-lasting movie star: one 57-year-old Sandra Annette Bullock. Her latest project, the romantic adventure-comedy The Lost City, has grossed $102.4 million in U.S. theaters and $181.5 worldwide thus far. Though that number is a fraction of the Top Gun tally, the stakes are different. Bullock’s picture cost a relatively modest $68 million compared to Maverick‘s reported $170 million sticker price.

Even if it was clearly “inspired” by Romancing The Stone, The Lost City is officially an original movie, which counts for a heck of a lot these days. Distributor Paramount (also behind Top Gun) felt confident enough in Bullock and, to a lesser extent, co-star Channing Tatum, that the studio gave the flick a full theatrical rollout, rather than relegating it to, say, Paramount+. That’s because Bullock has consistently churned out the hits, anchoring $100 million-grossing domestic successes in each of the last four decades. Her portfolio does include a few movies based on preexisting IP (Minions, her biggest-ever hit; Ocean’s Eight, a spinoff; and The Prince Of Egypt, based on a story from the best-selling book of all time). But a lot of her hits have been mostly the result of Bullock being a likable, versatile star capable of drawing in audiences across demographics through a variety of genres. She’s just as adept driving a killer bus as she is winning beauty pageants. Sandy has dabbled in streaming exclusives before (Bird Box was a streaming smash on Netflix in 2019), but it’s certainly nice to see she still commands a major following theatrically.

This writer would argue that a third, emerging superstar seems to be making his presence felt, with a whopping two titles on the list. Tom Holland (no, not the director of Fright Night) stars in two movies based on popular IP, Spider-Man: No Way Home (#3 on May’s JustWatch list) and video game adaptation Uncharted (#5). The latest Spider-Man, which has also grossed $1.89 billion in theaters, would have been at least some level smash no matter who played the Marvel web-slinger. Holland is generally considered to be the best live-action Spidey to date, and the 26-year-old Brit already oozes matinee idol charm. The success of Uncharted, however, both on these JustWatch charts and in theaters (netting $147.9 million domestically and $398.8 million internationally), seems to indicate that he just might be the next big thing. Yes, Uncharted is based on a known and beloved property, but video game adaptations with big stars tank all the time (Doom anyone?). Like Bullock with Tatum, Holland sagely starred alongside another known commodity in Mark Wahlberg, though the former Dirk Diggler is not the reliable action draw he once was (nor is he top-billed). It was Holland’s hit.

Elsewhere in the top five, auteur Robert Eggers’s ambitious Viking epic The Northman, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Nicole Kidman, debuts at #4 for May. Though it lost money in theaters (grossing $67.1 million worldwide against a budget in the range of $70-90 million), The Northman feels like the kind of original, adult-oriented story that could be ripe for discovery on streaming and home video.

Speaking of movie stars, one of the 1990s’ biggest, Jim Carrey, slots in at #6 with Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which replaces its predecessor on the April chart. Jared Leto’s much-memed Marvel bid (albeit one produced by Sony, not Disney), Morbius, debuts at #7. Ghostbusters: Afterlife makes a return at #8 (it last appeared in the February JustWatch top 10). Universal’s hit animated family adventure The Bad Guys is close behind at #9, and the original big-screen Downton Abbey (2019) rounds out the top 10. Streaming fans clearly were gearing up for this year’s sequel Downton Abbey: A New Beginning, which was first unspooled in theaters on May 20th.