“Top Gun: Maverick” Shares No. 1 VOD Glory In Week 4 With Two Unlikely Suitors

That's it for the long awaited #1 run for "Top Gun: Maverick" (Paramount/$19.99). In its fourth week of availability on VOD, the film only tops one of the three charts (Google Play) that we track each week. Surprising interest in “Beast” (Universal/$19.99) saw the lowly ($31 million) horror flick topped Vudu’s revenue-based chart in its second week, while “Where the Crawdads Sing" (Sony/$5.99) was boosted by an early price cut, including topping iTunes.

But "Maverick" hardly struggles with the #2 positions at Vudu and iTunes. However, neither of the two titles that replace it could have seemed likely to dethrone it.

This week saw standout screenings for three top studios, each suggesting how home playback of theatrical and window releases is still evolving. This includes Netflix's current top 10, which shows how two of them - Sony and Universal - continue to strengthen the dominant streaming site.

Sony stands out in three different ways this week, all of which have meaning. Despite being the most conservative studio with windows for the past two years, it released "The Invitation" ($19.99) in an unrated release after the horror film's third weekend. , similar to what Universal does. The modestly performing film did not skyrocket, with only a top 10 showing (iTunes, #10), although it just missed out on Vudu and #15 on Google Play.

Crawdads' rise comes after an unexpected price drop after just one week on PVOD. The initial week at $19.99 saw decent business, reaching No. 3, despite competition from 'Maverick' and the new 'Thor: Love and Thunder' (Disney/$19.99). It was an unusual move, and without access to revenue totals, its true impact is uncertain, but this figure should help sustain prolonged interest.

"Father Stu"

The first appearance of "Father Stu" on Netflix is ​​also interesting. Sony, without an in-house streamer, has an ongoing deal with the platform for its first movies. Yet it wasn't until recently that they appeared as early as six months after release (although his unclear "Spider-Man" is included in the deal). Mark Wahlberg's boxer-turned-priest biopic was an April release. It's #1 right now, showing even a lackluster theater play ($20 million gross) can boost a movie. (This is Wahlberg's second title on their list, with the original comedy "Me Time" starring Kevin Hart also recently at No. 1.)

Paramount has been another proponent of the long window, even with its own streamer. This week with “Confess, Fletch” ($19.99), they showed a preference for PVOD over theater-...