“Verity” beats “Digger” on opening night: 3.4 million against 1.2 million — Tom Cruise heading for the year’s biggest bomb

The thriller “Verity”, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, took in $3.4 million in Thursday evening previews, as MovieWeb reports, citing Variety. The film by director Michael Showalter, an Amazon MGM Studios production, is well on its way to an opening weekend of $30–35 million, which would secure it first place at the American box office. It would be Anne Hathaway’s third number 1 film in 2026, after “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and “The Odyssey”.

Compared with other Colleen Hoover adaptations, “Verity” is not expected to reach the $50 million opening of “It Ends With Us”, but according to MovieWeb it will surpass “Regretting You” ($13.6 million) and “Reminders of Him” ($17.9 million). With a production budget of around $40 million, the film has started well on the road to recouping its investment.

On the other side, “Digger”, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s dark satire with Tom Cruise, took in only $1.2 million from previews and is forecast to open with only $12–15 million, MovieWeb writes. The dreadful start shapes the film as one of the biggest box-office bombs of the year — an unfortunate launch for a production said to have cost $160 million.

The critics did not help either film: on opening day “Verity” stands at 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, while “Digger” is at 51%; both have 45 on Metacritic, according to MovieWeb.

Beyond the figures, the story is the tale of two studios: “Verity” looks like another win for Amazon MGM, while “Digger” is the last film Warner Bros. Discovery releases before its takeover by Paramount Skydance — an end of an era, as MovieWeb calls it.