{"id":792026,"date":"2026-10-04T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792026\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T21:12:09","slug":"tom-cruises-digger-bombs-in-box-office-opening-hoovers-verity-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792026\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise’s Digger Bombs in Box Office Opening; Hoover’s Verity Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Cruise<\/a> took a big swing with Digger<\/a> that did not pay off in its opening weekend at the box office<\/a>, as the satirical black comedy becomes a major disappointment for Warner Bros.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n\tFilmmaker Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu<\/a>\u2018s Digger opened to $8 million from 3,300 North American theaters, which is tough to swallow for a feature that carries a production budget of $125 million. (Reports have emerged that the budget rose to closer to $180 million, a figure that a studio representative disputes.) This marks a letdown from even the scant<\/a> $12 million to $15 million that Warner Bros. had projected heading into the weekend and represents Cruise\u2019s softest opening frame since 2007\u2019s war drama Lions for Lambs launched to $6.7 million but with a much smaller budget. Digger added $12 million internationally.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film always looked to be a bold effort designed to spark conversation and ideally hold awards prospects, as Cruise transformed himself into a balding, pot-bellied oil tycoon with an attitude who learns he caused a natural disaster. The awards buzz may prove tough to come by at this point, given that Digger was hit with a C+ CinemaScore from audiences, landing as one of the lowest grades for Cruise\u2019s career, and has polarized critics. Its Rotten Tomatoes score from reviewers stands at 51 percent approval, with The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s review<\/a> from chief film critic David Rooney deeming it \u201cdead and buried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWeeks ago, third-party tracking services initially suggested that Digger could open to closer to $30 million, but interest appeared to crumble in the 10 days leading up to release. Digger will go down as a significant financial loss for Warner Bros., marking an inauspicious final release before 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 taking over. De Luca and Abdy\u2019s impressive 2025 saw the releases of acclaimed Oscar winners One Battle After Another and Sinners, while 2026\u2019s results have been far less stirring.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tAnne Hathaway<\/a> in Verity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tAfter this brief detour to auteur-forward fare that brings to mind Cruise\u2019s earlier-career projects like Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia, the star will quickly return to the action-heavy, IP-driven movies that his audiences have come to expect, with Days of Thunder 2 soon revving up production. On Saturday morning, Cruise took to social media<\/a> to assert that he remained \u201cso proud of what we created\u201d with Digger.<\/p>\n

\n\tNabbing the top spot on the domestic chart was Amazon MGM Studios\u2019 Verity, as the feature adaptation of the Colleen Hoover<\/a> novel notched $32.6 million from 3,510 North American locations. The audience skewed heavily female at 78 percent, while 38 percent of Verity\u2019s crowd fell between the ages of 25 and 34.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is an encouraging start for the $40 million-budgeted thriller from filmmaker Michael Showalter that stars Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson<\/a> and Josh Hartnett. Among fellow Hoover adaptations, Verity\u2019s launch is below the $50 million that It Ends With Us grossed in 2024 but above the debuts for 2025\u2019s Regretting You ($13.6 million) and 2026\u2019s Reminders of Him ($17.9 million).<\/p>\n

\n\tVerity\u2019s critical response was far less spirited. It was saddled with the same disappointing C+ CinemaScore as Digger and holds a 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from reviewers, with critic Richard Lawson writing for THR<\/a> that it\u2019s a \u201cliterary misfire.\u201d Verity centers on a struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson) taking a job as a ghostwriter for acclaimed author Verity Crawford (Hathaway).<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tJesse Plemons in Digger.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cVerity\u2019s debut is another win for female-driven movies at the box office,\u201d Fandango director of analytics and Box Office Theory founder Shawn Robbins tells THR. \u201cFollowing an eclectic field of openers<\/a> last weekend, the adaptation adds to a healthy mix of content in cinemas right now while adding to what\u2019s become a banner year for Anne Hathaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the Digger setback, this weekend is set to generate a collective total of around $100 million domestically, according to Rentrak. This would put the frame up roughly 16 percent over last year\u2019s equivalent weekend, when Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl led the North American chart with $34.1 million. The 2026 domestic box office looks to hit $7.95 billion on Sunday, marking a 19 percent increase over the same point in 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill showing teeth as this weekend\u2019s runner-up in its third frame is Sony\u2019s Resident Evil<\/a>, which picked up $12.5 million to bring its domestic total to around $124.8 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> bounded to $11 million in its second weekend for an estimated cume of $38.3 million. David Ayer\u2019s movie stars Brad Pitt<\/a> as a Special Forces officer stranded with his combat dog in the wilderness.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tSandra H\u00fcller and Tom Cruise in Digger.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAntonio Olmos\/Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tA24\u2019s Primetime<\/a>, which was also in its sophomore frame, added $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 remains in a tight race with Digger to claim No. 4 on the weekend, depending on Monday actuals.<\/p>\n

\n\tFailing to find the top 10 as it opened in wide release over the weekend was Lionsgate\u2019s Beware Boi\u00fana, which started softly with around $550,000 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 feature about a giant snake. Beware Boi\u00fana has a 55 critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the weekend, Disney\u2019s Avengers: Endgame<\/a> returned to No. 1<\/a> on the all-time global box office chart. With its Avengers Endgame: Encore rerelease timed to build momentum for this December\u2019s Avengers: Doomsday, the 2019 Marvel Studios hit reclaims the top spot that it first achieved in the year of its release, when it initially surpassed 2009\u2019s Avatar. Endgame fell to the runner-up ranking two years later as Avatar\u2019s 2021 rerelease put the James Cameron blockbuster back at No. 1.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, Sony\u2019s Spider-Man: Brand New Day surpassed $2.5 billion globally over the weekend as its historic run<\/a> winds down. Maintaining the No. 3 all-time global spot, the Tom Holland-led film\u2019s worldwide sum of $2.506 billion gives Spidey the crown as the highest-grossing feature character, with Peter Parker movies having surpassed $17.5 billion.<\/p>\n

\n\tHitting the big screen next weekend are the Jessica Chastain-led chiller Other Mommy and Aaron Sorkin\u2019s The Social Reckoning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise took a big swing with Digger that did not pay off in its opening weekend at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[229702,9018,32241,7214,25959,33201,184230,96,59,214318,206780,40898,17293,56,54,55,190524,18199],"class_list":["post-792026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alejandro-g-iu00f1u00e1rritu","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-avengers-endgame","tag-box-office","tag-colleen-hoover","tag-dakota-johnson","tag-digger","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-heart-of-the-beast","tag-primetime","tag-resident-evil","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\/792026","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=792026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}