Entertainment

Digger Opens to $20M Globally as Verity Takes No. 1

Jonah VillalbaPublished 21m ago2 min readBased on 8 sources
Digger Opens to $20M Globally as Verity Takes No. 1
Photo by Kevin Paul / CC BY 4.0

Tom Cruise's new film Digger has opened to $20 million worldwide, a soft start for a big-budget release.

Studio estimates released on Sunday put the opening at $8 million in domestic theatres, meaning the United States and Canada, and $12 million internationally from 74 markets, with actuals due on Monday The Guardian. The film is directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and stars Cruise in the lead role.

The weekend belonged to Verity. The Amazon MGM release opened at No. 1 in North America with $32.6 million in studio estimates. Directed by Michael Showalter, it stars Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway.

The numbers put Digger well behind expectations for a film of its scale. Warner Bros spent at least $125 million to make it, with reports pegging the production budget closer to $150 million and marketing spend estimated at another $100 million The Guardian. The $8 million domestic opening was Cruise's lowest opening since 2007, according to Deadline.

Audience response was muted. Opening-night cinemagoers gave Digger a "C+" CinemaScore, a grade drawn from exit polls. Warner Bros ran "decide for yourself" advertisements after poor reviews.

The result arrives at a sensitive moment for the studio. Digger is Warner Bros.' last release before its merger, as reported by The New York Times. Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery has received approval from the US district court.

For context, Cruise's 2017 film The Mummy took $409.2 million worldwide on a $195 million budget. Warner Bros.' One Battle After Another has taken $213.2 million worldwide and won best picture at the Academy Awards.

Elsewhere on the chart, the Avengers Endgame: Encore re-release earned $4.4 million domestically and $14.4 million overseas in its second week. The re-release has lifted Avengers: Endgame back above Avatar as the highest-grossing film ever, not accounting for inflation, at $2.9255 billion against $2.9237 billion.

What makes this stand out is the arithmetic. A $20 million global start leaves a long road against production costs above $125 million plus a large marketing bill. For fans, this means attention now turns to the hold in week two.

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