Tom Cruise’s Digger Bombs in Box Office Opening; Hoover’s Verity No. 1

Tom Cruise‘s big-budget Digger finds itself in quite a hole with its opening weekend at the box office.

From filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Digger grossed around $3.3 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, as the film is expected to open with around $8 million. This stands even below the meager $12 million to $15 million range that Warner Bros. had been projecting and would represent a crushing launch for the project that carries a $125 million production budget. Digger is headed for the lowest opening weekend for Cruise since 2007’s war drama Lions for Lambs, which debuted with $6.7 million from a much smaller budget.

With a C+ CinemaScore from audiences that marks one of the worst grades of the star’s high-powered career (and is the same as that of Lions for Lambs), Digger is clearly a polarizing title and marks a huge creative swing as Cruise transformed himself into an overweight and balding oil tycoon. Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Sandra Hüller also star in the movie centering on Cruise’s titular character having caused a natural disaster.

Although the studio holds out hope that awards buzz could help the film have some legs as audiences discover it, critics have been divided, with Digger holding a 51 percent approval from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney deemed it “dead and buried.”

Digger marks an inauspicious final release for Warner Bros. as a stand-alone studio, as Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion merger with the studio is expected to be finalized Oct. 6. News broke days ago that Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are exiting the studio, with Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein set to take over. De Luca and Abdy’s dazzling 2025 included the success of acclaimed Oscar winners One Battle After Another and Sinners, while 2026’s releases have seen far less encouraging results.

Although Cruise was known earlier in his career for taking chances with filmmaker-driven features, ranging from Born on the Fourth of July to Magnolia, the star’s fans have been more used to seeing him in action-packed franchise fare, and indeed, he is soon to begin filming Days of Thunder 2. As Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabedian told THR, “We have to place our expectations around what this movie is and what it’s trying to be, rather than what the name Tom Cruise might normally be expected to deliver at the box office.”

Amazon MGM Studios’ Verity is expected to win the weekend as the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel kicks off spooky season. Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, director Michael Showalter’s thriller collected $15.1 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, and will finish the frame at No. 1 domestically with an estimated $33.6 million.

Like Digger, Verity earned a disappointing C+ CinemaScore from audiences for the story of struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson) taking a job as a ghostwriter for acclaimed author Verity Crawford (Hathaway). Verity holds a 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from reviewers, with critic Richard Lawson writing for THR that it’s a “literary misfire.”

Holding its ground at No. 2 in its third frame is Sony’s Resident Evil, which is expected to gross $12 million to bring its domestic total to around $124.3 million. Austin Abrams leads director Zach Cregger’s successful reboot of the video game property.

Paramount’s Heart of the Beast is rounding up around $11 million in its second weekend for a cume of roughly $38 million. David Ayer’s movie stars Brad Pitt as a Special Forces officer stranded with his combat dog in the wilderness.

Also in its sophomore frame is A24’s Primetime, which heads to $8 million to bring its domestic total to roughly $34 million. Robert Pattinson stars as journalist Chris Hansen in Lance Oppenheim’s fact-based thriller that is likely to place above Digger for the weekend.

More to come.