Top Gun: Maverick was a saving grace for Miles Teller’s box office bomb streak that included two big war movie disappointments. Teller is no stranger to the cinematic universe, as he has taken command of many roles that made him a recognizable and generally favored actor. However, the likes of the movies that brought him to celebrity status, namely Fantastic Four (2015) and the Divergent series, have not spared him from box office bad luck, a streak of a number of poorly received films that has weighed on the actor since 2015.
Teller’s misfortune is partially characterized by two war-themed movies that were particular upsets in the actor’s attempt to pioneer successful U.S. military-related films into his acting catalog. It wasn’t until 2022 that Teller joined the Top Gun: Maverick cast and proved that the third time’s the charm, for alongside Tom Cruise’s reprisal as Pete Mitchell, Teller finally and exceedingly redeemed himself at the box office. Top Gun: Maverick outperformed competing films by far and has since been titled the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S., but whether the cherished military movie will inspire Teller’s continued success in theaters is still undecided.
Miles Teller’s War Dogs & Thank You For Your Service Both Bombed At The Box Office
Compared to Top Gun: Maverick’s astonishing $2.5 billion haul, Thank You For Your Service, Teller’s war drama that he appeared in before the Top Gun sequel, made as little as $10 million grossed worldwide. The estimated $20 million film, inspired by real life, attempted to find favor in audiences exploring the harrowingly complicated lives of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq. Making only half of what it cost to produce the war film endeavor, Thank You For Your Service was unequivocally a failure.
Thank You For Your Service indicated a lackluster pattern for Teller’s palatability in war films because it followed 2016’s box office bomb, War Dogs. Starring Teller and Jonah Hill in the lead roles, War Dogs outperformed Thank You For Your Service at $86.2 million grossed; even with notable headlining actors, it performed limply in theaters. War Dogs’ performance could’ve resulted from its fairly high budget ($40 million estimated), or because it failed to translate another real-life war narrative into a successful comedy-drama — either way, War Dogs contributed to Teller’s box office curse that could only be broken by Top Gun: Maverick.
Top Gun: Maverick Saved Miles Teller From A 7-Movie Box Office Flop Streak
Top Gun: Maverick bailed Teller out of the trend of inadequate military movies, but it also rescued him from a suffocating streak of box office flops, seven unsatisfactory movies long. On his roster of theater disappointments is the sports biography-drama Bleed for This (2016), the comedy Get a Job (2016), co-starring Anna Kendrick, and 2017’s firefighting action Only the Brave, among others that just missed the mark with audiences. Since Teller’s last movie hit in 2015, the Divergent sequel Insurgent, all of his movies combined paled compared to his eventual redemption in Paramount’s dominating Top Gun: Maverick box office win.
The Top Gun sequel was always thought to become a hit since its inception. Top Gun: Maverick reclaimed the All-American vibes of the original movie and brought Tom Cruise back to continue his jet-fighting narrative. If all the nostalgia and hype restored from the premier film wasn’t enough, Top Gun: Maverick cast Teller as Goose’s son and maintained the legacy of one of the franchise’s deceased characters. All in all, Top Gun: Maverick met audiences with the formula for a big-hitting movie, and if it can maintain those winning qualities in the future of its franchise, Miles Teller may be able to keep his box office redemption.
Miles Teller Needs Top Gun 3 To Maintain His Box Office Redemption
In reality, Teller may need a prospected Top Gun 3 to keep him afloat regarding box office performance. He is only attached to two major projects in the upcoming future. While they seem promising — he’ll co-star along breakout actress Anna Taylor-Joy and Sigourney Weaver in the in-production movie The Gorge and contribute his voice to the animated movie The Ark and the Aardvark beside Aubrey Plaza and Jenny Slate — he may need the fanfare attached to Top Gun’s franchise to promise success in box offices.
Like Top Gun: Maverick, a third Top Gun movie, is almost assured to be prosperous. Even if Tom Cruise were to pass up the opportunity to reprise his role again, Top Gun 3 already has the recipe for success ingrained in it. It may not do as well without Tom Cruise, and it may not do as well as Top Gun: Maverick’s unprecedented achievement, but it may be just what Miles Teller needs to revive his presence in theaters.