20 HUGE Hit Movies NOBODY Saw Coming

12. Top Gun: Maverick

It's extremely funny to go back and read the online box office predictions for Top Gun: Maverick in the months leading up to its release. 

Though in fairness, there was very understandable skepticism that audiences would turn up for a 36-years-later legacy sequel to a film that, if we're being totally honest, isn't all that good to begin with.

For many, a $500 million gross would've basically been a job well done for a film many were intensely doubting, but Maverick went on to become one of the biggest blockbuster hits of the post-pandemic era.

With strong reviews, fantastic audience reception, and an extremely broad four-quadrant appeal, Maverick settled at an unbelievable $1.503 billion, making it by far the highest-grossing film of Tom Cruise's career.

Paramount quite perfectly leveraged the pent-up demand for fizzy, crowd-pleasing blockbusters that needed to be seen on the big screen in the wake of the pandemic, no matter that a Top Gun sequel making this much money still seems totally absurd in retrospect.