‘Verity’ Solid $33M+ Start; ‘Digger’ At $8M Is Tom Cruise’s Lowest Opening In 19 Years; Both Pics Get C+ CinemaScores – Box Office Update — SkimNews
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- Digger opened to $8M at the domestic box office across 3,321 theaters, marking Tom Cruise’s lowest opening since 2007 and falling short of expectations for a film with a $160M+ production budget
- Verity launched with $33.6M from 3,510 theaters, securing the second-best opening for a Colleen Hoover adaptation and outperforming projections after a $15.1M Friday
- CinemaScore gave both Digger and Verity a C+, the lowest grade yet for a Hoover film adaptation and a poor signal that contrasts with Verity's strong audience turnout and 50% definite recommend on PostTrak
- Alejandro G. Iñárritu directed Digger as a dialogue-heavy political satire aimed at Gen Z, but only 60% of its audience was aged 18–34 and just 47% gave it a definite recommend, with word-of-mouth declining from 8.1 to 6.4 on RelishMix
- Warner Bros released Digger during a transitional week as executives Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy exited, marking an inauspicious end to their tenure after greenlighting high-risk original films
- Amazon MGM Studios positioned Verity against Digger and benefited from tracking that suggested the Cruise film would underperform, capitalizing on strong female turnout (79%) and broad regional appeal
Why it matters: Warner Bros risks financial and reputational loss with a $160M+ bet that failed to connect, while Amazon MGM gains from strategic counterprogramming; the box office split shows audiences still reward female-driven adaptations even with weak CinemaScores, upending traditional wisdom about word-of-mouth impact.
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