If there’s one thing we know for sure about 2022, it’s that when it comes to Top Gun: Maverick, Australians are loving it sick.

Maverick easily conquered an unnamed hostile nation’s rogue military facility but now he’s taken down a much more formidable foe: the Avengers.

Top Gun: Maverick has flown past Avengers: Endgame as Australia’s third highest grossing movie ever. In the two months since the film was released, it’s taken $84.3 million at the local box office.

The second placed title, Star Wars: The Force Awakens at $94.04 million, is now in sight. The number one spot belongs to Avatar and at $115.7 million, Top Gun: Maverick may not have time to catch it.

Globally, Top Gun: Maverick is now sitting at $US1.29 billion. It is easily Tom Cruise’s most successful movie in his long career.

Only one other movie has made more money in the pandemic era and that was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which collected $US1.89 billion. Maverick has outsold No Way Home in Australia.

While the Australian takings for Maverick are less than 10 per cent of the film’s enormous global kitty, Australian moviegoers have proven to be ardent fans of the action sequel.

Australia is the fourth largest market in the world for Top Gun: Maverick, behind the US and Canada (which is one box office territory), the UK and Japan. But on a per capita basis, Australia overtakes those more populous countries in money spent watching Top Gun: Maverick.

In other words, Australians are loving it sick.

A triumphant cinematic success for Tom Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick is the sequel to the iconic 1986 movie which starred Cruise, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Meg Ryan and Kelly McGillis. The original film was also a commercial success and took in $US357 million at the time.

Only Cruise and Kilmer returned for the sequel. They were joined by a raft of younger actors including Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, Glen Powell and Jay Ellis.

The story brings Cruise’s hotshot pilot, call sign Maverick, back to the naval training academy to prepare a crew of talented young flyers for a dangerous and near-impossible mission.

Still butting heads with the navy brass, including characters played by Jon Hamm and Ed Harris, Maverick is also fighting his own obsolescence in a force that is relying less on human skill and instinct and more on drone technology.

Top Gun: Maverick has been whipping up fan fervour thanks to strong reviews and excellent word-of-mouth.

It has been singled out for its daring and propulsive action sequences, featuring practical aerial stunts which had the actors film their cockpit scenes in actual F18 jets zooming around in the air.

The movie was directed by Joseph Kosinski and was produced by Cruise, Jerry Bruckheimer, Christopher McQuarrie and David Ellison.

A Variety actors’ salary report revealed Cruise was a top gun in more ways than one, coming in at number one with an estimated $US100 million-plus payday from his work on Top Gun: Maverick.

Cruise has a rare “first dollar gross” compensation package which sees him paid a percentage of the raw box office takings, rather than a profit-sharing deal.

Teller cryptically revealed in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that he was in conversations with Cruise about a potential Top Gun 3, but said that it was “all up to Tom”.

One of Australia’s most iconic country music legends has relived his goosebump-inducing moment during a Top Gun screening.

Elvis star Austin Butler has revealed that one ruthless technique from Baz Luhrmann caused him to cry during filming.

The Mummy star Brendan Fraser looks very different in the first pictures from his new movie, The Whale.