Tom Cruise ‘Digger’ Stumbles With $8M Opening as ‘Verity’ Dominates Box Office
Tom Cruise ‘Digger’ is heading for an $8 million domestic opening, falling short of expectations as Anne Hathaway’s Verity leads the box office.
Tom Cruise’s Digger is heading for a disappointing domestic debut, with the Warner Bros. film expected to gross about $8 million from 3,300 North American theaters, according to industry estimates.
The Alejandro G. Iñárritu-directed drama took in $3.3 million Friday, including Thursday previews. The opening would fall well below Warner Bros.’ previous $12 million-$15 million projection and mark Cruise’s lowest wide-release debut since 2007’s Lions for Lambs, which opened to $6.7 million.
The result is particularly weak for a film with a reported $125 million production budget. Digger received a C+ CinemaScore, matching Lions for Lambs and ranking among the lowest audience grades of Cruise’s career. The film, a satire about an oil tycoon whose actions trigger a natural disaster, stars Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Sandra Hüller alongside Cruise, who underwent a major physical transformation for the role.
Critics have also been divided. Digger currently holds a 51% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic David Rooney called the film “dead and buried.”
The studio is hoping awards attention and strong word of mouth can give the film longer legs. The underperformance also comes as Warner Bros. prepares for its expected Oct. 6 merger with Paramount Skydance, marking one of the studio’s final releases before the transaction.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Verity, meanwhile, is leading the domestic box office. The thriller, based on Colleen Hoover’s novel and starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, earned $15.1 million Friday, including previews, and is projected to finish the weekend with $33.6 million from 3,510 theaters.
Directed by Michael Showalter, Verity received a C+ CinemaScore and has a 34% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. The Hollywood Reporter’s Richard Lawson called it a “literary misfire.”
Sony’s Resident Evil is expected to remain in second place with roughly $12 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to about $124.3 million. Paramount’s Heart of the Beast is projected to earn $11 million in its second weekend for a $38 million domestic total, while A24’s Primetime is headed for about $8 million and a $34 million cume.
Lionsgate’s Beware Boiúna, another wide opener, is expected to gross about $500,000 from 1,121 theaters. The horror film, directed by Mike P. Nelson and starring Kiana Madeira and Jessica Rothe, follows a giant snake and currently has a 55% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Next weekend’s major releases include Jessica Chastain’s Other Mommy and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning.
