Box Office: ‘Verity’ Aims for $35 Million Debut and Anne Hathaway’s Third No. 1 Movie of the Year, ‘Digger’ Could Bomb With $12 Million — SkimNews
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- Verity, a $40M adaptation of Colleen Hoover's novel starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, targets a $30-35M opening from 3,510 theaters — which would be Hathaway's third No. 1 debut of 2025 after "The Devil Wears Prada 2" and "The Odyssey."
- Digger, Tom Cruise and director Alejandro González Iñárritu's R-rated environmental satire, is tracking for just $12-15M from 3,300 screens against a budget that climbed from $125M to an estimated $160-180M (figures WB disputes); box office experts say it needed roughly $40M to justify costs.
- Amazon MGM is leaning on "Verity" to rebound from summer flop "Masters of the Universe" ($113M global vs. $200M budget), after its first major theatrical hit "Project Hail Mary" grossed $684M worldwide; the studio still has "I Play Rocky" and "How to Rob a Bank" coming later this year.
- Colleen Hoover adaptations have been reliably low-risk: "It Ends With Us" (2024) opened to $50M and grossed $350M globally, while 2025's "Regretting You" debuted at $13.6M and the upcoming "Reminders of Him" at $17M.
- Warner Bros.' "Digger" flop caps a dismal year that already included "The Bride!" and "Supergirl" — a stark reversal from 2025's trio of hits "Sinners," "A Minecraft Movie" and "Weapons" — and the timing is brutal since Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. is set to close next week.
- Warner Bros. has leaned into savage reviews of "Digger" with ads urging moviegoers to "decide for yourself" after critics called it "unpleasant" and "baffling," while Variety's own Guy Lodge dubbed "Verity" a "listless" and "unintentionally funny tale."
Why it matters: Tom Cruise and Iñárritu's "Digger" arrives at the worst possible moment for Warner Bros. — the studio is mid-collapse into Paramount's arms, and a film budgeted at $160-180M is about to debut at less than half what it needs. Meanwhile, Amazon MGM's bet on a $40M Colleen Hoover adaptation as its rebound vehicle underscores how cheap, IP-driven genre thrillers are now out-grossing star-driven prestige projects in the theatrical market.
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