Quick Links
When Tom Cruise starrer Top Gun was released in 1986, people had mixed reactions to it. Some called it a 'pretentious two-hour long advertisement for the air force' while others found the visuals and storyline a 'stimulating sensation'. But despite the initial few weeks of relatively less success, the movie broke through the box office eventually, earning $357 million globally and becoming a massive commercial hit.
In fact, the cult popularity of Top Gun did not dissipate after it made it out of theaters. It was almost like, Tom Cruise's continued popularity through the decades made the movie an even bigger deal as the years went by.
So naturally, fans were super-excited when it was announced that the much-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick was going to hit the theaters in 2022. It was finally coming through after being grounded for two years because of the pandemic.
And though the movie did exceptionally well, even becoming the biggest release of 2022, there were some shady things happening behind the scenes that most fans may not know of.
A Subpar Cable TV Deal May Have Cost Tom Cruise A Cut Of His Profits
Top Gun: Maverick grossed a total of $1.488 billion at the box office globally and became the highest-earning movie of 2022, beating out Jurassic World: Dominion and Avatar: The Way of Water. So the cable TV and streaming rights for the movie were pretty big ticket subjects for Paramount Pictures, the movie studio that produced the film.
Unfortunately for Paramount, there was a hurdle in the way when it came to releasing the movie on Paramount +, their streaming platform. That hurdle was the cable TV channel Epix.
Epix was created in 2008 by Paramount, Lions Gate Entertainment, and MGM. They wanted to compete with HBO and Starz, but Epix never made it that big. So, after years of mediocre performance, MGM took over Epix in 2017, buying out its partners Paramount and Lions Gate for $1.031 billion.
As part of that deal, Paramount agreed to let Epix run its movies for the next five years until 2022. And when they launched Paramount + in 2020, they extended that agreement for one more year, until 2023. The deal also allowed Paramount to release its own movies on its streaming platform after a short window of 45 days from their theatrical release.
This wasn't a big issue at first since Paramount Pictures hadn't put out any top movies in recent years. But Top Gun: Maverick was different.
As soon as Top Gun: Maverick blew up, the parties involved in the profit sharing became concerned about Paramount's deal with Epix.
According to them, it was undercutting their profits.
What Made Tom Cruise Miss Out On Money
When Paramount signed an exclusive deal with Epix for its movie rights, Universal Studios and Sony Pictures also signed exclusive deals with Peacock and Netflix respectively. But there was a massive difference in payout for Paramount compared to the others.
Netflix paid Sony Pictures almost double what Epix paid Paramount. And Peacock also paid Universal a much larger amount than what Paramount scored in its deal, despite Peacock being a sibling company to Universal Studios.
This became an issue when Top Gun: Maverick broke through the box office and became a billion-dollar mega-hit.
The movie was now extremely valuable for streaming and cable TV players. But the Epix-Paramount agreement made the deal extremely cheap for Epix and costly for Paramount and its profit-sharing partners, in terms of lost profits.
Tom Cruise was one of the people who likely lost out on tens of millions because of this.
How Much Did Tom Cruise Make From Top Gun: Maverick?
According to Variety, Tom Cruise made more than $100 million from Top Gun: Maverick. Most of which is attributed to the gross earned from ticket sales.
The figure is likely to be higher once you factor in the profits from streaming and cable revenues.
It turns out Tom Cruise prefers to take a smaller upfront salary for his roles, choosing instead to bank on the success of his projects for big pay-days in the future. Sources have said that he chose to take home a salary of only $12 - 14 million for the next two Mission: Impossible movies. But he's guaranteed to make ten times more through his stake in the profits from the Mission: Impossible franchise.
This may look like an insane amount of money to an average person, making them wonder why one would worry about losing out on a few more millions because of a bad cable TV deal, but in reality, it does not work that way. Costly lawsuits have been waged on less-popular franchises.
For example, Fox had to pay David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel $170 million in a settlement over unpaid profit-sharing fees from their hit TV series Bones.
Paramount though did not consider their deal with Epix 'a bad one.'
According to a statement in Bloomberg News, Paramount said “our agreements are entered into at market rates” regarding its agreement with Epix. But industry insiders don't agree. Especially since they can easily compare the figure to what Netflix paid to Sony and Peacock to Universal.
Thankfully for Paramount, Tom Cruise's lawyers never filed a lawsuit against them over lost profits. But they did get in hot water in a different copyright lawsuit related to Top Gun: Maverick.
That lawsuit has not reached its conclusion at the time of writing this article.