Sony Pictures Presidents Credit VENOM 2 For The Success of TOP GUN: MAVERICK
While I watched the awesomeness of Top Gun: Maverick play out on the big, the movie Venom: Let There Be Carnage didn’t even exist in my mind. But yeah, there was a Venom sequel, and Sony motion picture group presidents Sanford Panitch and Josh Greenstein credit that film for the epic success of Top Gun: Maverick.
The Tom Cruise-led film made more than $1.2 billion so far worldwide at the box office, making it the biggest 2022 film to date. When talking about all the press that Top Gun: Maverick has been getting, Panitch explained to Vulture:
"There’s so much press about Top Gun right now. It’s like, 'the movie business is back!' In a weird way, I would say Top Gun is benefitting from us taking our shot. Venom is the start of that story that allows Top Gun to do the kind of business it did. These things don’t happen overnight. It’s a seeding.
"We took a big gamble putting Venom in theaters. Then we doubled down with Ghostbusters. Then our biggest bet was when every other tentpole had fled, we tripled down with Spider-Man – our biggest, most important piece of IP."
I get what they’re saying, but I don’t really agree with it. Movies have been around for a long ass time! Even if the Pandemic hadn’t hit, Top Gun: Maverick still would have been a huge success! Do you know why? Because it’s a great movie and audiences enjoy watching great big movies like this in theaters! It had nothing to do with Venom 2 being released in theaters before it. It had everything to do with good storytelling and awesome jet fighter action sequences!
If there’s any movie that paved the way for the success of Top Gun: Maverick, it’s the original Top Gun film! It’s so silly to me that some people feel they have to take credit for the success of something that they had absolutely no connection to.
The only thing this type of talk does is put that mediocre Venom 2 film back in the headlines. What do you think?