"Top Gun: Maverick," the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 hit, opened to a blockbuster $156 million in the U.S. and Canada over the long Memorial Day weekend (2022), a box-office record for the holiday and a career-best debut for its lead, Tom Cruise.

The movie creates a no-less-than-36-year-old franchise and reaffirms the 59-year-old (that's 60-1, if we're not mistaken) Cruise as a highly bankable movie star. Not exactly an elderly or a senior, the man, but he sure is, huh, mature.

The movie stars Mr. Cruise as a veteran fighter pilot working with a group of younger recruits on a top-secret mission to destroy a uranium plant in an unidentified country. It has received rave reviews and ridden an aggressive marketing blitz by Paramount. The high-profile, big-budget (if somewhat predictable) release sure kicks off the summer in high gear.

Given the success, wondering if there is talk of a third increment. Beware, Tom may next play a 70-year-old youngster fresh out of school... 

As anthropologist Ashley Montagu puts it, "The idea is to die young as late as possible." 

Never too late indeed. Old has never been that young. If Hollywood screams it, who are we to differ?