'Digger' Just Became Tom Cruise's Worst Opening in 40 Years — While 'Verity' Took the Weekend With $33.6M
In 60 seconds: Tom Cruise's $160 million bet on Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Digger opened to a disastrous $7.5–8 million — his worst star-vehicle opening since 1985 — while Anne Hathaway's Verity, made for a reported $40 million, took the weekend with about $33.6 million.
- Digger earned about $3.4 million on Friday (including $1.2 million in Thursday previews) and is tracking to a $7.5–8 million opening weekend — roughly half of what Warner Bros. expected.
- The budget reportedly ballooned from $125 million to as much as $160–180 million, making it one of the most expensive flops in recent memory.
- It's Cruise's weakest wide-release opening since 1985's Legend, and his worst as a leading man since 2007's Lions for Lambs ($6.7 million).
- Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson's Verity won the weekend with ~$33.6 million despite a C+ CinemaScore, powered by a 79% female audience.
- The flop lands days before Warner Bros. is swallowed by Skydance — Digger is the studio's final release as a standalone company.
There's flopping, and then there's this. Tom Cruise spent years chasing auteur credibility, finally landing five-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu for a satire in which he plays an overweight, balding oil tycoon trying to prove he's humanity's savior after his own company triggers an ecological disaster. Digger arrived in 3,321 North American theaters this weekend and face-planted: about $3.4 million on Friday, heading for a $7.5–8 million opening on a film that cost at least $125 million — with Variety reporting the true bill climbed to $160–180 million.
What happened
Both films opened Friday, October 2. Verity pulled an estimated $15.1 million on Friday from 3,510 cinemas (including $4.5 million in Thursday previews) — enough for an opening weekend of roughly $33–35 million. Digger managed $3.4 million Friday including $1.2 million in previews, per The Numbers, and Deadline projects an $8 million weekend. Warner Bros. had been telling the press to expect $12–15 million. It came in at about half that.
Latest verified facts
The numbers, via The Numbers, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap, and Variety reporting:
- Verity: ~$15.1M Friday → ~$33.6M weekend; 3,510 locations; reported $40M budget; C+ CinemaScore; 34% critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Digger: ~$3.4M Friday (incl. $1.2M previews) → ~$7.5–8M weekend; 3,321 locations; $125M budget at greenlight, up to $160–180M after overruns; C+ CinemaScore; 51% critics / 71% audience on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Co-stars: Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jesse Plemons.
- THR chief critic David Rooney called the film "dead and buried."
Why it matters
Cruise has been the closest thing Hollywood has to a box-office guarantee for four decades. Box-office analyst Scott Mendelson notes this will be his worst star-vehicle wide-release opening since Legend ($4 million) in 1985. Even adjusted for inflation, his tiny 1983 debut All the Right Moves did better. For an industry anxious about whether star power still moves tickets, the biggest star of them all just delivered the worst possible data point.
The cruel irony: the film's defenders are passionate. Guillermo del Toro posted on October 1 that the film is "daring, bold and Cinematically complex," and Cruise himself posted on October 3 that he was "so proud of what we created." Pride, unfortunately, doesn't cover a $160 million budget.
Impact on the USA and the world
The timing could not be worse for Warner Bros. Digger is opening on the eve of Skydance officially swallowing the studio — its final release as a standalone company, with Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy reportedly on the way out. For moviegoers, the weekend wrote a clear lesson: Verity's Friday audience was 79% female and 41% aged 25–34. Female-skewing films barely need men to show up; male-skewing tentpoles increasingly need women — and Digger didn't get them.
What happens next
Warner Bros. is publicly clinging to awards-season hope — Iñárritu plus Cruise was engineered for Oscars. But math is math: at roughly one-twentieth of its budget in the opening frame, Digger would be lucky to earn back even a third of its production cost theatrically. Watch the second-weekend drop: anything above 60% confirms audiences have moved on. The bigger question is what Skydance's new Warner Bros. does with its first greenlights — because after this weekend, "$160 million auteur satire" is a pitch that will get laughed out of every room in Burbank.