Tom Cruise's 'Digger' Tanks to His Worst Opening Since 2007
Anne Hathaway's Verity opened to $33.6 million on a $40 million budget. Tom Cruise's Digger opened to $7.5 million on a $160 million budget. The 'movie star' premium just got its clearest price tag yet.
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Tom Cruise just posted his weakest opening weekend since Lions for Lambs bombed in 2007 ... and Anne Hathaway's Verity posted $33.6 million on the same day.
According to TheWrap, Digger earned $7.5 million from 3,321 locations in its opening weekend. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and produced at a reported $125 to $160 million, the film needed somewhere close to $300 million worldwide just to break even, per Warner Bros.'s own assessment. It is not on pace.
Verity, the Colleen Hoover psychological thriller starring Hathaway and Dakota Johnson, earned $33.6 million from 3,510 locations on a $40 million budget, breaking the record for the best domestic debut for a Hoover adaptation since It Ends With Us in 2024.
The budget math is brutal
At $160 million in production costs and a $7.5 million opening, Digger is on pace to lose more money than almost any Warner Bros. release this year. The studio was already projecting conservatively going in: presales ran roughly half what WB's previous Best Picture winner achieved at the same point in its release cycle. The "Decide for Yourself" marketing campaign, which positioned the divisive dark satire as a must-see theater event, did not move tickets.
Verity flipped the math. Amazon MGM put $40 million into a Colleen Hoover adaptation with a cast that audiences already trusted, and walked away with a film that will turn a theatrical profit before streaming residuals kick in. Both films received a C+ CinemaScore. The difference was how many people showed up before word of mouth spread.
Movie stars no longer move tickets outside their franchise
Tom Cruise can still open a Mission Impossible film. That franchise has its own audience, its own promotional machinery, and two decades of earned goodwill. But Digger is not a franchise film. It is a prestige original, and on that terrain, Cruise's name alone could not sell enough tickets to justify the production cost.
Hathaway is on a different run. Per MovieWeb, Verity is her third 2026 box office win. She is not a franchise star. She is an actress who picks projects that audiences pay to see. The distinction matters commercially.
The Hoover factor is also real. Her readers are a proven theatrical audience: It Ends With Us grossed $351 million worldwide on a $25 million budget. Publishers and studios have learned to take that IP seriously. The adaptation that delivers even a fraction of the source material's fanbase tends to profit. Verity grossed $15 million on opening day alone.
Symbolic timing for Warner Bros.
TheWrap notes that Digger is Warner Bros.'s final standalone studio release before the Paramount acquisition closes. The historic studio is handing off ownership with one of its most expensive misses of the year on the books. That is not just a financial footnote: it is the institutional summary of what WB tried and failed to do in 2026, which was find prestige alternatives to franchise content.
For Cruise, the read is more personal. He has not opened below $10 million as a lead since Lions for Lambs. That film also starred Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, carried an equally divisive critical reception, and was produced by a major studio betting on a star-driven political drama. History rhymes.
The conclusion is not that prestige filmmaking is finished. It is that prestige alone does not sell tickets when the campaign does not give audiences a clear reason to choose the theater over their couch. Iñárritu's reputation did not survive the trailers.
Ad Watch News is an independent commentary site with no affiliation with Tom Cruise, Anne Hathaway, Warner Bros., or any party named here. This piece draws on published sources listed below.
Sources & further reading
- TheWrap: Verity Leads Box Office With $33 Million Opening While Digger Sinks to $7.5 Million
- Screen Rant: Colleen Hoover Thriller Breaks Post-It Ends With Us Box Office Record
- MovieWeb: Anne Hathaway's New Thriller Officially Dominates Box Office as Tom Cruise Faces Jaw-Dropping Bomb
- TheWrap: Tom Cruise's Digger Poised for a Disastrous Box Office Opening
- Gold Derby: Box Office: Tom Cruise's Digger Bombs as Anne Hathaway's Verity Wins
- Wikimedia Commons: Tom Cruise, Saturn Awards 2026 (Kevin Paul / CC BY 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons: Anne Hathaway, Berlinale 2023 (Harald Krichel / CC BY-SA 3.0)
