{"id":791212,"date":"2026-10-04T00:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/791212\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T00:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T00:48:10","slug":"tom-cruises-digger-bombs-in-box-office-opening-hoovers-verity-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/791212\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise’s Digger Bombs in Box Office Opening; Hoover’s Verity No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Cruise<\/a>\u2018s big-budget Digger<\/a> finds itself in quite a hole with its opening weekend at the box office<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tFrom filmmaker Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu<\/a>, Digger grossed $3.3 million on Friday, including Thursday previews<\/a>, as the film is expected to open with around $8 million from 3,300 North American theaters. This stands even below the meager $12 million to $15 million range that Warner Bros.<\/a> had been projecting<\/a> and would represent a crushing launch for the project that carries a $125 million production budget. Digger is headed for the lowest opening weekend for Cruise since 2007\u2019s war drama Lions for Lambs, which debuted with $6.7 million from a much smaller budget.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith a C+ CinemaScore from audiences that marks one of the worst grades of the star\u2019s high-powered career (and is the same as that of Lions for Lambs), Digger is clearly a polarizing title and marks a huge creative swing, as Cruise transformed himself into an overweight and balding oil tycoon. Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Sandra H\u00fcller also star in the satire centering on Cruise\u2019s titular character having caused a natural disaster.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough the studio holds out hope that awards buzz could help the film have some legs as audiences discover it, critics have been divided, with Digger holding a 51 percent approval from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review<\/a> for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney deemed it \u201cdead and buried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTom Cruise and Sandra H\u00fcller in Digger.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSeoju Park\/Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tDigger marks an inauspicious final release for Warner Bros. as a stand-alone studio, as Paramount Skydance\u2019s $111 billion merger<\/a> with the studio is expected to be finalized Oct. 6. News broke days ago that Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca<\/a> and Pamela Abdy<\/a> are exiting<\/a> the studio, with Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein set to take over. De Luca and Abdy\u2019s dazzling 2025 included the success of acclaimed Oscar winners One Battle After Another and Sinners, while 2026\u2019s releases have seen far less encouraging results.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Cruise was known earlier in his career for taking chances with filmmaker-driven features, ranging from Born on the Fourth of July to Magnolia, the star\u2019s fans lately have been more used to seeing him in action-packed franchise fare, and indeed, he is soon to begin filming Days of Thunder 2. As Rentrak\u2019s Paul Dergarabedian told THR<\/a>, \u201cWe have to place our expectations around what this movie is and what it\u2019s trying to be, rather than what the name Tom Cruise might normally be expected to deliver at the box office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmazon MGM Studios\u2019 Verity<\/a> is expected to win the weekend as the adaptation of Colleen Hoover\u2019s novel kicks off spooky season. Starring Anne Hathaway<\/a>, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, director Michael Showalter\u2019s thriller collected $15.1 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, and will finish the frame at No. 1 domestically with an estimated $33.6 million from 3,510 North American locations.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDakota Johnson in Verity.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlisha Wetherill\/Amazon MGM Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Digger, Verity earned a disappointing C+ CinemaScore from audiences for the story of struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson) taking a job as a ghostwriter for acclaimed author Verity Crawford (Hathaway). Verity holds a 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from reviewers, with critic Richard Lawson writing for THR<\/a> that it\u2019s a \u201cliterary misfire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHolding its ground at No. 2 in its third frame is Sony\u2019s Resident Evil<\/a>, which is expected to gross $12 million to bring its domestic total to around $124.3 million. Austin Abrams leads director Zach Cregger\u2019s successful reboot of the video game property.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount\u2019s Heart of the Beast<\/a> is rounding up around $11 million in its second weekend for a cume of roughly $38 million. David Ayer\u2019s movie stars Brad Pitt<\/a> as a Special Forces officer stranded with his combat dog in the wilderness. <\/p>\n

\n\tAlso in its sophomore frame is A24\u2019s Primetime<\/a>, which heads to $8 million to bring its domestic total to roughly $34 million. Robert Pattinson<\/a> stars as journalist Chris Hansen in Lance Oppenheim\u2019s fact-based thriller that is likely to place above Digger for the weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother newcomer in wide release this weekend is Lionsgate\u2019s Beware Boi\u00fana, which opens quietly with around $500,000 from 1,121 North American theaters. Mike P. Nelson, who has been tapped to helm the next Saw<\/a>, directed Kiana Madeira and Jessica Rothe in the horror offering about a giant snake. Beware Boi\u00fana has a 55 critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n

\n\tNext weekend\u2019s notable releases include the Jessica Chastain-led chiller Other Mommy and Aaron Sorkin\u2019s The Social Reckoning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise\u2018s big-budget Digger finds itself in quite a hole with its opening weekend at the box office.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[229702,9018,7214,8077,6491,184230,96,214318,176223,260476,206780,40898,35588,17293,56,54,55,190524,18199],"class_list":["post-791212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alejandro-g-iu00f1u00e1rritu","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-box-office","tag-brad-pitt","tag-celebrities","tag-digger","tag-entertainment","tag-heart-of-the-beast","tag-michael-de-luca","tag-pamela-abdy","tag-primetime","tag-resident-evil","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-tom-cruise","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-verity","tag-warner-bros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}