Top Gun: Maverick has outperformed expectations at the global box office, taking $248m (£196m) worldwide.

The film, which sees the return of Tom Cruise’s hotshot pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, after the character was first introduced in 1986’s Top Gun, has benefited from strong reviews and word-of-mouth, as well as a lengthy and high-profile publicity drive.

It marks the first time a film starring Cruise, 59, has broken the $100m mark on opening weekend, and makes it the highest-opening non-superhero movie released since the pandemic began, following Spider-Man: No Way Home (£206m), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness with (£148m) and The Batman (£106m).

It also attracted a demographic higher than those Marvel and DC films, with an estimated 55% of the audience over 35.

Some £151m of the takings came from the US, where the film screened at a record 4,732 cinemas. Around 19,000 other locations around the globe were reported to be screening the film.

Top Gun: Maverick was initially scheduled to open in summer 2020 but was delayed several times because of the pandemic. Its marketing campaign began in 2019, and climaxed last week with an appearance by Cruise in Cannes and a royal premiere in London.

Speaking in Cannes, where the film screened and its star was presented with an honorary Palme d’Or, Cruise reiterated his producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s vow that the film would not debut on a streaming site.

“That was never going to happen,” said Cruise.

The first film was directed by Tony Scott on an estimated budget of $15m, and resulted in a 500% year-on-year recruitment uptick for the US Navy’s aviation division.

The sequel was made by Joseph Kosinski for a reported budget 10 times the size of the original’s.

Cruise’s previous highest debut was Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, which opened to £51m in 2005. The star has two further Mission: Impossible films scheduled for release in 2023 and 2024.