LOS ANGELES – “Top Gun: Maverick” soared to $124 million during its opening weekend, earning Tom Cruise his highest domestic debut.

He is a prolific actor who made his name as a brave stuntman and has earned more than $4.2B at the national box office. However, he had never before had any film that was open to over $65M.

It ParamountThe Skydance movie also earned $124 million international, making it a total of $248 million. For the Memorial Day weekend, the studio anticipates that the film will gross $151 million. As it has limited competition for box office, the film may have strong holds over the next few days until Universal’s “Jurassic World : Dominion” release on June 10.

Paul Dergarabedian is a senior media analyst with Comscore. “The summer movie seasons are back.” “Top Gun: Maverick” is an amazing reminder of how audiences will flock to theaters to experience the moviegoing experience. It combines one of last true movie stars with old-fashioned storytelling.

It’s a good sign for the box-office, still struggling to recover from the continuing pandemic. It attracted older viewers, who are a sought after demographic which has taken longer to return to cinemas ever since the reopening of these venues in mid-2020.

EntTelligence estimates that around 29% of the tickets sold over the weekend was for viewings prior to 3 p.m. 35% were for screenings between 3-7 p.m. It is evident that most tickets sold during the weekend were for matinee screenings, which are popular with older moviegoers.

Shows that were held after 9:00 p.m. saw only 11% of the tickets being sold. Paramount statistics show that 55% were above the 35-year-old mark.

EntTelligence reports that approximately 9 million moviegoers will see “Top Gun Maverick” in its three first days. It is four times more than the 2 million people who saw “Top Gun: Maverick” when it first appeared in theaters in 1986.

The average price of premium format tickets was $16.32, not including Thursday preview screenings. 32% of the sold tickets went to premium formats. EntTelligence reports that non-premium seats averaged $12.86 per ticket.

It also happens to be a strong film, just weeks after Warren Buffett. Berkshire HathawayThe results were shocking bought 68.9 million shares of ParamountAs of March 31, a $2.6 Billion stake will be built.

Paramount was Berkshire’s 18th largest holding as of the second quarter. The new stake adds another streaming propertyBerkshire’s top-ranked holding, Apple, is in its portfolio.

Disclosure: Comcast, the parent company for NBCUniversal (and CNBC) is Comcast. NBCUniversal distributes “Jurassic World: Dominion”.