Weekend Box Office: Verity Debuts at No. 1 While Digger Gets Buried
The Anne Hathaway-led Colleen hoover adaptation opened strong, but Digger gave Tom Cruise one of his lowest openings ever.
There was a winner at the box office this weekend and its top-of-the-line star is capping off one helluva year. But it is not the film getting the headlines this weekend, as more attention is being focused on the loser. It’s one for the ages, we must say. Maybe that’s why the star of that film is teaming up with the star of the big winner this weekend for their next film.
King of the Crop: Verity Debuts at No. 1
The Hooververse expanded this weekend. Colleen Hoover, that is. From the success of It Ends with Us to more marginal ones like Regretting You and Reminders of Him, the consistency is there. The latter films grossed between $48-49 million domestic and were both successes. Verity now joins the party. Anne Hathaway (continuing that helluva year), Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett star in the psychological thriller that critics were not on board with (34%) but audiences appeared to eat up with a solid $32.6 million opening weekend.
Director Michael Showalter’s biggest hit to date was also one of Sundance’s big success stories in 2017’s The Big Sick, which began as a platform release and made it to $42.8 million. Verity is going to pass that by next weekend. It is the 19th film to open in October between $30-40 million. Only six of them passed $100 million, including Verity’s distant cousin, Gone Girl. Only three of the 12 films to open between $30-35 million (Puss in Boots, Couples Retreat, Bad Grandpa) hit nine digits, but Amazon/MGM appears to have their second solid hit of the year after Project Hail Mary. The $40 million production grossed over $62 million worldwide this weekend.
Rotten Returns: Digger Gets Buried
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu has not had a film in theaters since his Oscar-winning The Revenant in 2015. Tom Cruise has not made a film that was not a sequel since 2017’s American Made. Digger is an original film. So consider for a moment that seven of the top 10 Cruise openings ever were Mission: Impossible films, with Top Gun: Maverick being the highest. Cruise’s run as a box office draw expands so far over five decades that it is somewhat crazy to think that Digger is the lowest opening weekend Cruise has had as a headliner since Rain Man ($7 million) in 1988 (and he was second-billed to Dustin Hoffman). Top Gun opened to $8.19 million in 1986, and that was the ninth-best opening of that year. It is safe to say with confidence that Digger is just about the worst opening of Cruise’s career.
Inarritu’s film began with just $8 million this weekend. That is quite the fall from just the past couple weeks, when alarm bells went off after its projections fell to just below $20 million. (That’s how much it did worldwide.) Warner Bros. kept the film off of the festival circuit, and when early word from critics began to surface, one could see why. Though it has already found some champions around the critical world, the Tomatometer score is right down the middle at 51%. Legend (34%), Losin’ It (18%), and Cocktail (11%) are among the films on Cruise’s resume to rank lower on the Tomatometer than Digger, with Far and Away matching it at 51%. Perhaps even Cruise saw the writing on the wall weeks ago when he went ahead with the big announcement that he was next pairing with Anne Hathaway on a sequel to Days of Thunder (which, incidentally, is at 38% on the Tomatometer). Just please stay away from Cocktail 2, Tom.
Back to Digger, though. The news that Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are out of Warner Bros. as of this Tuesday broke just as Digger was opening and the merger with Paramount to Skydance was finalized. The film’s budget reportedly began with $125 million, and then delays ballooned it to anywhere between $140-180 million. Let’s just take the original production number to produce this wild stat. There have only been three films that cost at least that much to be released in over 3,000 theaters and failed to pull off a $10 million opening from Friday to Sunday. The most recent was Moonfall in 2022 ($9.86 million). The lowest was the animated Mars Needs Moms in 2011. Digger is the third. Both The Adventures of Tintin and The Matrix Resurrections also did not reach $10 million in their openings, but each also opened on the Wednesday before with Christmas Eve falling on the weekend. Resurrections was also released during Warner Bros.’ day-and-date HBO MAX era during the pandemic.
21 films with Cruise as a headliner have grossed over $100 million, including three for Warner Bros., with Interview with the Vampire, Edge of Tomorrow, and The Last Samurai. If you wanted to play the inflation game, that number increases to 34, with only Legend, All the Right Moves, and the aforementioned American Made being the only ones not to reach $100 million based on the estimation of tickets sold. (OK, Rock of Ages and Lions for Lambs wouldn’t either, but he’s a supporting player in both of those.) American Made opened to $16.7 million and finished with $51.3 million. Eyes Wide Shut cost $65 million back in the day and, at worst, was in the vicinity of breaking even when it left theaters. Digger was certainly a swing, and it will turn out to be a costly one and the lowest-grossing film starring Cruise in non-inflated dollars since Legend ($15.5 million) in 1986 and All the Right Moves in 1983 ($17.2 million). And whatever critics or the public think about the film, if you aren’t willing to gamble on stars like Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) or Tom Cruise every once in a while, then what are we even doing? Your move, Skydance.
Tales of the Top 10: Resident Evil Holds Strong, with Heart of the Beast and Primetime Just Behind
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil continues to perform strong with $12.5 million in its third weekend. With $124.8 million after 17 days, it ranks sixth all time among September releases behind The Conjuring: Last Rites ($150.5 million). That film had a $12.2 million third weekend, suggesting Resident Evil is indeed headed somewhere between $150-155 million. Globally the film has passed $245 million.
A $20 million opening. Another $30 million overseas. That came to a $50 million start for the $82 million production of Heart of the Beast. Its second weekend grossed $11 million to bring its 10-day total to $38 million. This is what we might call Looper numbers. That late September opening had $40.2 million after a $12.1 million second weekend and ultimately finished with $66.4 million. Looper was also a $30 million production that made over $110 million internationally. Heart of the Beast is not going to reach its theatrical goal if it is to finish between $60-70 million. Worldwide it is at $98 million.
The debate is only beginning about Robert Pattinson as a movie star headliner that can open a film. But the returns on The Drama and Primetime this year are pretty compelling evidence to start with. The Drama was the third-best opening ever for A24 until Primetime came along last week and knocked it back to fourth. Whether or not the films themselves generate the kind of word of mouth needed is another story. The Drama had a pretty solid 3.34 multiple to over $48 million. In its sophomore weekend, Primetime dropped 58% to $8 million, bringing its 10-day total to $34 million. That’s a little more than $3 million ahead of where The Drama was, so a landing in the $45-55 million realm seems about right. Both films will be among A24’s top 10 domestic grossers.
Last week’s disappointing opening for Universal/Dreamworks’ Forgotten Island stings no less this week. The $7.2 million it made in its second weekend brings the film to just $23.6 million on the domestic side. That is more than it has made on the international side of the world ($14.9 million), which is no help either. Kubo and the Two Strings got a late summer release in 2016 and slightly benefitted from Labor Day in its third weekend. By its second it had made $24.8 million after making $7.8 million. Forgotten Island is likely headed between $35-45 million. A real disappointment.
Avengers: Endgame Encore got its own encore this week, though clearly not at No. 1. The film dropped 83% back to seventh place this week with $4.4 million. That brings its 10-day total to $36.2 million and, no, not $894 million. To use a little of the Endgame logic against it, this is a new timeline and a new release. Endgame had its run in 2019 and an incredible run at that. You don’t get to play nine innings or four quarters and then use a second game to add to your score in week one. And as re-releases go, it is now 17th all time, passing the 20th Anniversary of E.T. back in 2022 ($35.3 million). The re-release has racked up $126 million worldwide.
The bad news continues for Warner Bros. as Practical Magic 2 just did not materialize into the kind of nostalgic hit they wanted in the vein of The Devil Wears Prada 2. The Sandra Bullock/Nicole Kidman reunion made $2.6 million in its fifth weekend, bringing the $75 million production to just $64.6 million domestic. It just finally crossed $100 million worldwide. In this current stretch of 12 straight (including Digger) sub-$100 million domestic releases, Practical Magic 2 is about to pass Insidious: Out of the Further for fifth among them, behind Wuthering Heights, Mortal Kombat II, Supergirl and One Battle After Another. Which is not to say that Wuthering Heights, Insidious, Evil Dead Burn, and Lee Cronin’s The Mummy weren’t successes. They were. But there have definitely been more misses than hits, with Clayface up next.
It was either going to be Spider-Man: Brand New Day or The Odyssey to survive one more week in the top 10. Peter Parker just edged out Odysseus $2.45 million to $1.3 million. The biggest domestic movie of all-time now stands at $954.4 million, while globally it stands at $2.506 billion. The Odyssey, meanwhile, now has $620.4 million and has passed Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($620.1 million) for 15th all time on the domestic chart. It’s just $3 million away from passing Marvel’s The Avengers for 14th. Nolan’s film has made $1.767 billion worldwide.
Beyond the Top 10: Beware Boiúna Sinks in over 1,000 Theaters
Lionsgate’s new snake movie did not find much of an audience this weekend, perhaps because hardly anyone knew about it. Beware Boiúna screened at Fantastic Fest in Austin last month, but then there was nothing to speak of for regional critic screenings. Anaconda is still your giant snake leader, opening to $16.6 million back in 1997. The goofy 2025 version with Paul Rudd and Jack Black began with $14.5 million. Then you have Snakes on a Plane ($13.8 million) and Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid ($12.8 million). Beware Boiuna opened with just $550,000 in 1,121 theaters this weekend. That’s less than Venom (not the Tom Hardy movie) in 1982 ($1.67 million).
The Owen Wilson/Matt Rife comedy Rolling Loud: The Movie made $467,000. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother moved into 16 theaters this weekend and grossed $228,000. In anniversary news, Donnie Darko celebrated its 25th by grossing $1 million for its re-release this weekend. Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning Moonlight also made $301,000 in 400 theaters.
On The Vine: Jessica Chastain Wants to Be Your Other Mommy
Universal is hoping to get some of that horror dough early this month with Jessica Chastain in Rob Savage’s Other Mommy (which is not screening for press). Aaron Sorkin does a follow-up in the director’s chair to his Oscar-winning script with The Social Reckoning from Sony. Angel Studios has an update of Angel and the Badman with Zachary Levi. Then in limited release, Neon releases Christian Mungiu’s Fjord with Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve and Bleecker Street has Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary Musk. See all the upcoming releases here.
Full List of Box Office Results: October 2-4
- Verity – $32.6 million ($32.6 million total)
- Resident Evil – $12.5 million ($124.8 million total)
- Heart of the Beast – $11.0 million ($38.0 million total)
- Primetime – $8.0 million ($34.0 million total)
- Digger – $8.0 million ($8.0 million total)
- Forgotten Island – $7.2 million ($23.6 million total)
- Avengers: Endgame Encore – $4.4 million ($36.2 million total)
- Practical Magic 2 – $2.6 million ($64.6 million total)
- Drishyam – The Conclusion – $2.7 million ($2.7 million total)
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day – $2.45 million ($954.4 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©Amazon MGM Studios
