Tom Cruise's Digger Flops With $8 Million While Anne Hathaway's Verity Takes the Box Office Crown
The Colleen Hoover thriller opens at number one with $32.6 million, while Cruise's big swing from Alejandro G. Iñárritu lands in fifth and becomes his softest debut in almost two decades.
Anne Hathaway's Verity won the weekend at the North American box office, but the story everyone is talking about is Digger. Tom Cruise's first movie outside the action genre in almost a decade opened to just $8 million, landing in fifth place and turning into a major disappointment for Warner Bros.
Verity, the Amazon MGM Studios thriller based on the Colleen Hoover novel, debuted on an estimated $32.6 million from 3,510 theaters. Digger, the oil baron satire from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, played in more than 3,300 theaters and was beaten by holdovers like Resident Evil and Primetime.
The numbers sting even more because Warner Bros. had been projecting an opening between $12 million and $15 million. The film also took in another $12 million internationally, but that does little to soften the blow.
How Bad Is the Digger Opening?
It is Cruise's lowest opening since Lions for Lambs debuted to $6.7 million in November 2007. For perspective, even The Mummy, the 2017 flop that ended Universal's plans for a shared monsters universe, opened to $31 million.
The budget makes things worse. The production cost is listed at $125 million, though reports have put the real figure closer to somewhere between $160 million and $180 million. The studio disputes the higher number. Marketing reportedly added another $100 million, and the film is said to be headed for a loss of $125 million to $150 million against a breakeven point of $300 million.
Interest appears to have collapsed late. Tracking weeks ago pointed to an opening closer to $30 million, but enthusiasm faded in the ten days before release.
Audiences did not warm to it either. Digger earned a C+ CinemaScore, one of the lowest grades of Cruise's career, and critics are split, with a 51 percent approval score on Rotten Tomatoes. Cruise took to social media over the weekend to say he is proud of the film.
A Bold Swing That Missed
On paper, Digger sounded like something special. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an aging, balding, pot-bellied oil tycoon with a major attitude who learns he caused a natural disaster. The film is part environmental satire and part character study, and it was always designed to start conversations.
It is also Cruise's first movie that is not an action blockbuster since 2017's American Made. The role looked like a pivot toward more dramatic work after the end of the Mission: Impossible franchise, and Oscar buzz followed him into release.
That awards push now looks complicated. A weak opening, a poor audience grade and mixed reviews are a tough combination for a first competitive Academy Award campaign. The film has its champions and could still show up during awards season, but the road just got much steeper.
Iñárritu, the filmmaker behind Birdman and The Revenant, made the movie as a big, polarizing statement, and so far audiences are not biting.
A Rough Goodbye for Warner Bros.
Digger is also the final Warner Bros. release as an independent studio. Its merger with Paramount Skydance, a deal valued at well over $100 billion, is expected to close on Tuesday, October 6. A new corporate name for the combined company was announced just days ago.
Film group co-heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy are reportedly leaving the combined company. They arrived in 2022, rode out the lows of 2024, and then had a standout 2025 that brought both box office success and Oscar glory. This year has been rougher, with Supergirl and The Bride both failing to reach $100 million.
Paramount's Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein are understood to be taking charge of both film studios once the deal closes.
Verity Gets the Win
Verity stars Hathaway alongside Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. Its $32.6 million start is the second best debut for any Hoover adaptation, trailing only It Ends With Us, which opened to $50 million in August 2024.
That earlier film was overshadowed by a long legal fight between star Blake Lively and co-star and director Justin Baldoni, and it still finished with $202.9 million. Verity easily beats the other Hoover adaptations, though. Reminders of Him opened to $18 million and Regretting You to $13.7 million.
The Rest of the Top 10
Zach Cregger's Resident Evil took second place with $12.5 million in its third weekend. That is a decent 46 percent drop, and it pushes the horror reboot's domestic total to $124.9 million.
Brad Pitt's military dog adventure Heart of the Beast came in third with $11 million, down 45 percent in its second weekend, for $38.4 million overall. Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as TV host Chris Hansen, fell 58 percent to $8 million and sits at $34.1 million after two weekends.
Forgotten Island dropped 45 percent to land sixth with $7.2 million and $23.6 million total. The re-release Avengers: Endgame Encore ranked seventh with $4.4 million. That brings its total from this run to $36.2 million, and it has pushed Endgame's career global haul to $894.6 million, enough to reclaim the all-time global crown from Avatar.
The Indian thriller Drishyam: The Conclusion opened in eighth on $2.7 million from 541 locations. Spider-Man: Brand New Day rounded out the top 10 with $2.5 million, lifting its total to $954.5 million as the highest grossing release of all time in North America. The Sundance documentary The History of Concrete also crossed $1 million, adding $450,000 across more than 50 markets for a total of $1.2 million.
The Big Picture
Despite Digger's stumble, the overall market is healthy. The weekend brought in $98.9 million combined, running 14.8 percent ahead of the same weekend in 2025. The year to date stands at $7.9 billion, up 19.5 percent.
The box office is on track to cross $8 billion around October 9, give or take a day or two. September generated $601.9 million, up 1.3 percent from last year and the seventh highest September ever.
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