Verity takes box-office crown as Tom Cruise's Digger flops
Verity topped the North American box office with $32.6m while Tom Cruise's Digger opened in fourth with just $8m, the star's weakest opening in 19 years.
Verity, the psychological thriller starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, has beaten Tom Cruise’s Digger to the top of the North American box office for the weekend of 2–4 October.
The adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel, directed by Michael Showalter, took $32.6m in its opening weekend, according to industry monitor Exhibitor Relations. Veteran industry watcher David A. Gross of FranchiseRe called it an excellent opening for an original psychological thriller, noting the figure was “well above average for the genre, in spite of weak reviews and audience ratings” (AFP via eNCA).
It was a very different story for Cruise. His black comedy Digger, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring the actor as a powerful oil tycoon, opened in fourth place with just $8m — Cruise’s weakest opening in 19 years, since Lions for Lambs ($6.7m) in 2007. The film cost a reported $125m–$180m to produce, with roughly another $100m spent on global marketing, and could lose Warner Bros. between $150m and $200m theatrically (JustJared, via Variety). A C+ CinemaScore and 51% score on Rotten Tomatoes suggest poor word of mouth (Filmoria).
Sony’s Resident Evil held second place with $12.5m, taking its North American total to $125m after three weekends, while Paramount’s Heart of the Beast, starring Brad Pitt, took third with $11m. Both Verity and Digger also opened in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday.
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