The film Top Gun: Maverick, more than 36 years after the hit airplane movie starring Tom Cruise, has taken off at the top of the U.S. box office, according to preliminary figures released Sunday, May 29, by the specialized firm Exhibitor Relations.

The film Top Gun: Maverick was presented at the Cannes Film Festival, where Tom Cruise received an honorary Palme d’Or, the Paramount/Skydance blockbuster has collected 151 million USD in the United States and Canada according to these estimates over four days, from Friday to Monday (May 27 to 30), a holiday for Americans who celebrate “Memorial Day”.

The film Top Gun: Maverick was critically acclaimed. Tom Cruise still plays Navy test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, now a captain, who trains to bomb a rogue country’s uranium enrichment plant.

Top Gun: Maverick has a stellar cast, with Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller and Jon Hamm, while Top Gun veteran Val Kilmer makes a brief appearance as Iceman, a key character in the first installment.

With this supersonic entry, Top Gun: Maverick dethroned Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the latest Marvel Studios production, which topped the box office three weekends in a row, and which still totalled 21.1 million receipts from Friday to Monday (May 27 to 30). The sequel to the adventures of the neurosurgeon turned wizard, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, had achieved the best launch of the year, with 187 million USD.

In third place (15 million USD) came the animated film Bob’s Burgers: the film, based on the American TV series of the same name, which tells the funny adventures of a family running a hamburger restaurant.

With 7.5 million USD, Downton Abbey 2: A New Era ranks fourth, ahead of The Bad Guys, outlaw animals who try to become good (6.1 million USD).