SATURDAY AM: Warner Bros’ very original, very expensive auteur feature, Digger, is filing an $8M opening, which is still the lowest for Tom Cruise since 2007’s much cheaper Lions for Lambs at $6.7M.
In hindsight, Amazon MGM Studios was bold to date on top of a big budget Cruise movie with the big screen take of Colleen Hoover’s Verity, but they caught wind from early on that the Alejandro G. Iñárritu-directed Digger wouldn’t be a tycoon at the B.O. Verity is posting the second best opening for a Hoover novel on the big screen now at $33.6M after a better than expected Friday of $15.1M.
Here’s a coincidence; both films get a C+ CinemaScore. That’s the worst Hoover has received so far, her It Ends With Us landed an A-, while Reminders of Him and Regretting You received Bs. Typically female book adaptations file in the B-range as fans of the novel are quite critical of the theatrical take. Should Verity be concerned about buckling due to that CinemaScore? Nah, Fifty Shades of Grey filed a C+ and it was alright. The 79% female turnout here for the Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett thriller stands at a 50% definite recommend on Screen Engine/Rentak PostTrak exits.
Verity is playing everywhere, including the South, East, South Central and Midwest. PLFs are repping 28% of the weekend sans Imax. Adam Aron can be happy that AMC Lincoln Square is the pic’s top grossing venue with more than $36K through Friday.
On the bright side for Digger, frankly, we thought it would be worse in its CinemaScopes ala Mother! (F) or Eyes Wide Shut (D-). Cruise’s idiosyncratic turn as a charismatic self-help guru in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 Magnolia (which earned Cruise a Best Supporting Oscar nom) earned a C- CinemaScore. Interestingly enough, Digger‘s RT audience score of 71% is the same as Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid (71%), which was another divisive film made for $50M (considered wildly expensive for the arthouse auteur, though next to Digger‘s $160M+ production cost, a very thrifty spend).
What few went to Digger? Iñárritu has said that he made the movie for the Gen Z generation (who would have thought?), and the little who bought tickets were 60% between 18-34. Largely overall male at 73%. Overall definite recommend is low at 47%. Imax and PLFs for this VistaVision-shot movie are contributing close to half of the gross. No surprise, this movie is playing strictly on the coasts which are repping 48% of its cash versus the regions’ average of 40%. AMC Lincoln Square counts the best sum for this artistic disaster at $45K.
We’ll get into the mud with Digger later, but this is, what it is: a heavy dialogue driven, political absurdist satire, and per those in tracking, satire never does well. We’re not talking The Naked Gun, rather Paramount Pictures’ Tim Robbins-directed and -starring Bob Roberts from 1992. True, not a wide release back in the day, rather an indie play, but still it only made $4.4M. There’s also Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 The Informant comedy starring Matt Damon, another Warner Bros release. Though made for $22M back in 2009, it didn’t dazzle with a $10.4M opening and final domestic of $33M. What about the Oscar winning The Big Short? (final domestic $70.2M). That was loaded up with all-stars including Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Christian Bale and Brad Pitt and made for a substantially lower price tag of a reported net $30M. Film finance sources will argue that originality always comes at a very low cost, however, try telling that to motion picture executives in the streaming era when Netflix and Apple are making $100M+ movies (Noah Baumbach’s Netflix movie White Noise made for well in excess of $140M).
The latter example brings up the point that some streamers can get away with making expensive movies, and showing zero gross (yes, that will soon change for Netflix as they report certain titles on their upcoming fall and 2027 slate). But when a motion picture studio rolls the dice, they’re vilified. In the current era of theatrical vs. streaming, motion picture execs are banging their heads against the wall when it comes to making original movies that set themselves apart from the hodgepodge offerings in a streaming queue. Digger was an attempt by the Warner Bros. administration of Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy to do something unseen before, a la period vampire musical pic, Sinners, and anarchist 1970s action car movie, One Battle After Another, with a big star and director, that was very much in the spirit of other ballsy Warners Bros pics (remember before it opened, Gravity took a while to get off the ground in development and was considered a gamble).
Word of mouth fell on Digger in RelishMix metrics from an 8.1 on a scale of ten on Sept. 15, to a 6.4 earlier this week. “Chatter has been mixed-negative for Digger. There’s skepticism with viewers who love the idea of Cruise, but side-eye the execution: ‘Impressive that after a nearly three-minute long trailer, I still don’t really know what this movie’s about.’ The sharpest criticism isn’t about hating the movie, it’s about distrust, suspicion that the ‘aging gracefully’ narrative is a PR construct. Comments needle at the film’s tonal identity, wondering if it’s satire or self-parody, ‘For me this looked funny at first viewing. Second time it just looks cynical and a bad Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove rip-off. Hope my first take is right.’ Plus, ‘Why does this look like Tropic Thunder cosplay’ along with, ‘I understand even less about this movie after the full trailer than I did after the teaser.’ And, there are grumbles about the promo montage in the ‘Tom Cruise Retrospective’ trailer feeling like a premature Oscars reel,” reports RelishMix.
The other curveball with Digger is that there’s a twist. From the marketing, audiences walk into the movie thinking it’s a western apocalyptic comedy. Yes, it’s that, but it’s meta and that will no doubt confuse.
Digger‘s social media reach across Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok and YouTube stood at 289.5M followers before opening, which is -66% less than that of Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning (847.2M) and -28% behind Top Gun: Maverick‘s (404M).
Despite the pothole of Digger, the overall weekend is looking great with the third straight $100M+ weekend so far this fall with an estimated $101.3M, +25% from a year ago when Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl opened to $34M.
As far as September at the domestic box office, it was pretty damn good. Not the best, but the second best post-Covid per Rentrak with $601.9M, +1.3% from last year, and filing behind 2024’s $606.8M when Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ruled.
Verity (AMZ) 3,510 theaters, Fri $15.1M, 3-day $33.6M/Wk 1
Resident Evil (Sony) 3,259 (-425) theaters theaters, Fri $3.6M (-47%), 3-day $12M (-48%), Total $124.3M/Wk 3
Heart of the Beast (Par) 3,481 (+46) theaters, Fri $3.1M (-58%), 3-day $11M (-45%), Total $38.3M/Wk 2
An encouragung hold for the older adult skewing title which is expected to leg out this autumn.
Primetime (A24) 2,894 (+20) theaters, Fri $2.49M (-70%), 3-day $8.2M (-56%), Total $34.2M/Wk 2
Digger (WB) 3,321 theaters, Fri $3.4M, 3-day $8M/Wk 1
Forgotten Island (Uni) 3,555 (+7) theaters, Fri $1.6M (-63%), 3-day $6.6M (-49%), Total $23M/Wk 2
Avengers Endgame: Encore (Dis) 3,000 (-60) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-90%) 3-day $4.2M (-87%), Total $894.3M lifetime/Wk 2 re-release
A very steep drop here for the re-release. Remember, Revenge of the Sith only played one week. The Star Wars re-release in 1997 held significantly better at -32% in weekend 2 (different times). I’m told the drop is due to the one-week muscle of Disney’s PLF certified screens Infinity Vision going dim.
Practical Magic 2 (WB) 2,063 (-1,115) theaters, Fri $750K (-51%), 3-day $2.7M (-52%), Total $64.7M /Wk 4
Drishyam – The Conclusion (Zee) 541 theaters Fri $818K, 3-day $2.45M/Wk 1
Strong sales here in Seattle, NYC, and Canada. The Abhishek Pathak directed movie centers around the Salgaonkar family as they try to cover up a murder.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 1,724 (-685) theaters Fri $580K (-42%), 3-day $2.4M (-40%), Total $954.4M/Wk 10
FRIDAY PM: It’s an operatic weekend for Warner Bros not just with their motion picture heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy leaving as their contracts were rejected by new owner Paramount, but with their audacious $160M+ Tom Cruise starring, Alejandro G. Iñárritu Digger unearthing the former’s lowest opening in 19 years with $10M at 3,321 theaters. It’s an unfortunate note to end on after the duo’s revitalized slate of A Minecraft Movie, Weapons, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Dune 2, Sinners, and multi and Best Picture Oscar winner, One Battle After Another.
The last time Cruise had a low opening like this at the North American box office was 2007 with the Robert Redford directed drama Lions for Lambs at $6.7M, that pic costing significantly less at the time with a reported production cost of $35M. Today, including last night’s previews of $1.2M, Digger is eyeing $4M. Note that rivals have Digger much lower with a high single digit opening. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is better than its critics score at 71% to 51% Rotten.
Prevailing is Amazon MGM Studio’s Collen Hoover suspense for women, Verity, with a $14.5M Friday, inclusive of $4.5M previews, for what’s shaping up to be a $32M start, if not more at 3,510 sites. No RT audience score yet.
Sony’s third weekend of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is estimated around $11.5M in 2nd place, -50%, after a third Friday around $3.5M at 3,510 sites. Running cume by Sunday is $123.8M.
Paramount’s second weekend of its Brad Pitt green beret-with-a-dog survival movie, The Heart of the Beast is holding very well at $10.3M at 3,481 locations, -49%, for a ten-day cume by Sunday of $37.6M. Then puts Digger in fourth.
Fifth goes to A24’s second weekend of Primetime at around $7.6M at 2,894 theaters, -60%, steeper than anticipated. Pic is posting a $2.2M second Friday. Robert Pattinson and Zendaya’s edgy romance pic The Drama, held better -40% in weekend 2. Ten-day cume by Sunday is $32.7M.
The second weekend of Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island at 3,555 theaters is $6.5M, -50%, after a second Friday of $1.6M and a running cume of $22.9M.
Disney/Marvel Studio’s Avengers Endgame: Encore is looking at an estimated second frame of $6M, -81%, which is clearly very front-loaded for the re-release. Second Friday is around $1.5M with a running cume by Sunday at $37.8M and a lifetime of $896.1M stateside.
FRIDAY AM: Amazon MGM Studios’ Colleen Hoover thriller Verity grossed $4.5M in its overall previews, which is right where it should for arguably the author’s second-most-popular novel-to-screen adaptation. That figure is lower than the $7M previews of the author’s box office megahit It Ends with Us ($50M opening) and it’s ahead of the $1.9M preview cash of her Reminders of Him from earlier this year ($17.9M).
Hoover’s Regretting You last fall, which Paramount released, didn’t report preview figures from 500 screens. The weekend outlook for the Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett movie is $30M+. Previews for the R-rated Verity began yesterday at 2PM and also include early access shows.
Critics have no patience for Verity, but they didn’t have patience for 2024’s It Ends with Us (55% Rotten) or the most recent Hoover adaptations Reminders of Him (56%) or Regretting You (29%). Audience scores, driven by women, on Hoover pics outshine the critics with Regretting You at 83% certified fresh and It Ends with Us and Reminders of Him at 87% each.
On a night when word leaked that Warner Bros Motion Picture Chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy aren’t making the jump to the new combined Paramount-Warner Bros company, the studio’s $125M-$160M+ Tom Cruise-led satire Digger was soft everywhere with $1.2M previews. That’s lower than the preview of last fall’s One Battle After Another ($3.1M, $22M opening). The movie from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu will be lucky to open to north of $10M in North America.
Any good news here? Um, the cash so far is higher than the $770K previews made by Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed $125M epic Megalopolis, which opened to $4M via Lionsgate in 2024. Previews began for the R-rated Digger at 2 p.m. (I don’t recall any nude scenes in the movie, it has an R for F-bombs). Cruise’s movies have made $14 billion across 53 titles in 45 years. Even when he has a release, and even if it misfires, the whole value of the library rises again. Anecdotally, you could probably find a ton of Cruise titles on a major airline right now.
RELATED: The 65 Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office
How the week’s top 5 went:
1) Resident Evil (Sony) 3,684 theaters, Wk $32.1M (-60%), Total $112.3M/Wk 2
2) Avengers Endgame: Encore (Dis) 3,060 theaters, Wk $31.8M, Lifetime cume $890.1M/Wk 1 of re-issue
3) Heart of the Beast (Par) 3,435 theaters, Wk $27.3M/Wk 1
4) Primetime (A24) 2,874 theaters, Wk $25.1M/Wk 1
5) Forgotten Island (Uni/DWA) 3,548 theaters, Wk $16.4M/Wk 1
RELATED: Upcoming Anne Hathaway Movies From ‘The End Of Oak Street’ To ‘Verity’