Swing and a miss—that’s what’s happening this weekend with Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Tom Cruise-led film, Digger. Despite a huge $130 million budget and probably the most consistently popular movie star in the lead, the poor reviews and bad early buzz have done a number on the movie’s box office prospects. It’s opening even lower than we predicted, with it on track for an $8 million opening. That’s Cruise’s lowest as a leading man since Lions for Lambs back in 2007, which only opened with $6.7 million. Adjusted for inflation, Digger is actually opening lower, and Lions for Lambs wasn’t an especially expensive film.
It’s being trounced by the Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity, with it looking like it will open with about $33 million. Still, it might come in slightly lower, as the CinemaScore is a shockingly poor C+, the same as Digger. While the stars, Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway, as well as Hoover, are pulling in viewers, they don’t seem to be liking what they see.
The rest of the top five is being dominated by holdovers, with Resident Evil looking at second place with $12 million and a $124 million total. In a nice piece of good news, Brad Pitt’s rather excellent Heart of the Beast is having a nice hold this weekend, only on track to drop 45% to $11 million, with a $38 million total. Primetime is having more of a tumble, falling 56% (which still isn’t bad) to $8.2 million and a $34 million total—it will be a nice moneymaker for A24. Avengers: Endgame Encore is looking at one of the biggest second-week drops in history, plummeting 87% to $4.2 million, as everyone at this point knows about the added footage, and everyone who wanted to see it seemingly caught it last weekend.
Of course, a lot can change, and we won’t know the real box office picture until tomorrow, when we return with the full rundown.
What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the comments.
