Tom Cruise 'Top Gun Maverick' Salary: Actor Could Earn Up To $200 Million

Tom Cruise could set the record for the highest-paid movie role of all time with "Top Gun: Maverick."

The first "Top Gun" movie, which stars Cruise as pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, became the highest-grossing film of 1986 after earning $360 million at the box office. Now, 36 years later, its highly-anticipated sequel demonstrated Cruise's undeniable star power once again by becoming the highest-grossing domestic debut in his 40-year career.

For the 1986 film, Cruise was paid $2 million, which was 13% of the movie's entire budget, according to Celebrity Net Worth (CNW). Earning this amount at the time is the same as earning around $5.4 million today, the outlet noted.

For the sequel, the 59-year-old actor received an upfront acting fee of $13 million, Variety reported. In addition to this, he is also entitled to backend payment.

Cruise is reportedly one of the actors who demand first-dollar gross on their backend participation, which means he gets paid before his studio makes money from box office receipts.

Cruise will receive 20% first-dollar gross for "Top Gun: Maverick," CNW's Brian Warner reported, citing unnamed sources. International Business Times could not independently verify this information.

With this deal, if the movie makes $1 billion worldwide, Cruise will get $200 million — 100 times his original "Top Gun" salary.

If he earns $200 million from "Maverick," he will set the record for the largest film acting payday of all time, surpassing Bruce Willis' record.

Willis made $114 million from his role in the 1999 horror thriller "Sixth Sense" as on top of his $20 million upfront fee, he negotiated for 17% of the film's global box office gross plus additional rights to its home video sales. His earnings are valued at $194 million in today’s dollars.

"Top Gun: Maverick" is off to a great start, collecting $124 million from North American cinemas in the first three days of its release, Variety reported.

At the international box office, it raked in $124 million as well despite not playing in China and Russia, putting the film's total opening weekend at $248 million worldwide.

Cruise's previous biggest opening weekend came in 2005 with "War of the Worlds," which raked in $64 million domestically in its first three days.

As of 2022, Cruise's net worth is estimated to be around $600 million.