Steven Spielberg tells Tom Cruise Top Gun: Maverick saved 'Hollywood's a**'

Steven Spielberg has told Tom Cruise that he saved 'Hollywood's a**' with the new Top Gun movie.

The legendary director bumped into the actor at the 2023 Oscars Nominee Luncheon, and thanked him for his work on Top Gun: Maverick. This is what he had to say:

Cruise returned to the silver screen last year with his long-awaited sequel to the 1986 classic Top Gun.

And it proved to be a mega hit. I mean, of course, it was.

Following a stonking opening weekend, which saw the movie take in a tidy $100 million, it went on to become the 12th highest grossing films of all time.

And considering it was coming off the back of a global pandemic that saw cinemas shut down for months and months, it's not a bad return.

Overall, Maverick raked in $1.48 billion in the global box office, and saw many praise Cruise for giving Hollywood the boost it desperately needed.

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One of those who was full of admiration for the 60-year-old was acclaimed director Spielberg, who thanked him personally for his incredible efforts in making the movie a success.

Speaking to Cruise at the Oscars event, he said: "You got the milestone... you saved Hollywood's a**."

While the Mission: Impossible actor smiled self-deprecatingly, Spielberg then added: "Seriously, Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry."

I mean, that's high praise indeed.

But Cruise is as aware as anyone else that it's the fans who made it the success it was.

In a video posted in December, he was seen hanging out the side of a plane just moments before he was set to leap out of it.

Why? I hear you ask. Because it's Tom Cruise, that's why.

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In the clip, the goggle-clad star kicks off the video while perched miles above a beach.

"Hey everyone, here we are over stunning South Africa and we're filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning parts one and two," he says.

"I didn't want the year to end without thanking you all for coming out to the theatre and thank you for supporting Top Gun: Maverick."

Backing Spielberg's comments, though, film journalist Scott Mendelson revealed in Forbes that Top Gun: Maverick accounted for almost a quarter of the domestic summer movie line-up in the US.

He wrote: "The commercial reception of Tom Cruise’s legacy sequel was the summer movie miracle theatres needed.

"Its domestic and global grosses represented miracle #1. Its pull among irregular moviegoers was miracle #2. If those moviegoers stick around, that’ll be miracle #3."

So maybe he really did save Tinseltown.