“Doctor Strange” and its multiple universes continued to top the North American weekend box office while Tom Cruise and “Top Gun” loomed large.
Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was the highest-grossing weekend movie for the third consecutive week, grossing $31.6 million on 4,534 screens in North America, according to distribution company estimates released on Sunday.
That will change with the release of the much-anticipated “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel that arrives next week on Memorial Day weekend, 36 years after the original film and cultural landmark.
Star Tom Cruise witnessed the film’s screening at the Cannes Film Festival in France on Wednesday with a quick appearance at the film’s European premiere, which included flights of French fighter planes and an honorary Golden Palm award.
But while the world waits, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” crossed $800 million in gross worldwide, overtaking “The Batman” to become the highest-grossing film of the year.
Released by Walt Disney and directed by Sam Raimi, “Doctor Strange 2” benefited from being the first Marvel movie to follow “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, in which the wizard character played by Benedict Cumberbatch played a central role.
It’s also based on the popular Disney Plus series “Wanda Vision” and contains the cameos that fans didn’t want to spoil.
The “Bad Guys” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” family films ranked third and fourth.