On the cusp of the studio\u2019s merger with Paramount, Warner Bros.\u2019\u00a0\u201cDigger\u201d\u00a0flopped in its opening weekend, handing Tom Cruise one of the worst debuts of his career and serving as a bitter final note for Warner Bros. as a standalone studio.<\/p>\n
\n
No. 1 in North American theaters instead went to Amazon MGM\u2019s\u00a0\u201cVerity,\u201dextending the streak for Colleen Hoover adaptations at the box office. It debuted with $32.6 million. The film, directed by Michael Showalter, stars Dakota Johnson as a writer hired to ghostwrite a book series by an incapacitated author (Anne Hathaway).<\/p>\n
But all eyes were on how \u201cDigger,\u201d one of the year\u2019s biggest gambles, would perform. Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s critically panned satire grossed a paltry $8 million domestically. Cruise is typically a big draw overseas, but international sales, $12 million from 74 markets, were also weak.<\/p>\n
After reviews so bad that Warner Bros. opted to run \u201cdecide for yourself\u201d ads, estimates for \u201cDigger\u201d had been revised down over the past week.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a painfully rough start for a movie that cost at least $125 million to make. Reports have pegged the production budget closer to $150 million. The marketing spend is estimated at another $100 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cDigger\u201d had been positioned as a potential awards-season heavyweight, dated almost exactly the same as Warner Bros.\u2019\u00a0\u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d\u00a0was last year. \u201cDigger\u201d is a similarly politically charged release that handed a large budget to a top filmmaker working from an original story.<\/p>\n
But this big swing by Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy won\u2019t pay off as well as \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d It grossed $213.2 million worldwide and, more importantly,\u00a0won best picture at the Academy Awards.<\/p>\n
\u2018Digger\u2019 flops at a moment of Hollywood transformation<\/h4>\n
The disappointing opening comes just as Paramount Skydance is closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. After U.S. District Judge Araceli Mart\u00ednez-Olgu\u00edn on Wednesday\u00a0approved the $110 billion deal, Paramount said it would close the merger on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In a flush year for Hollywood, Warner Bros. has failed to get one film to $100 million domestically, though its December release, \u201cDune: Part III,\u201d will easily cross that. De Luca and Abdy are expected to depart Warner Bros. this week. Mass layoffs are anticipated to follow.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Digger\u2019 collapsed this weekend and the new management of the combined Paramount and Warner Bros., David Ellison and Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, will soon decide what kind of movies they want from WB,\u201d wrote David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office figures. \u201cParamount does not have a recent history of making big, auteur-driven films like this \u2014 that strategy appears to be over and out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics (51% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) slammed \u201cDigger\u201d as a strained climate change farce, though Cruise\u2019s over-the-top performance was received more warmly. Audiences agreed, giving it a \u201cC+\u201d CinemaScore.<\/p>\n
Cruise has spent most of the last decade starring in \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d movies and \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d both franchises that have allowed him to remain a top action hero into his 60s. The 64-year-old\u2019s last major box-office disappointment was 2017\u2019s \u201cThe Mummy,\u201d which grossed $409.2 million worldwide on a $195 million budget.<\/p>\n
To help sell \u201cDigger,\u201d Cruise pulled out all the stops. He even granted his first lengthy magazine interview in years.<\/p>\n
\u2018Avengers: Endgame\u2019 retakes all-time crown<\/h4>\n
Last weekend\u2019s top film,\u00a0\u201cAvengers Endgame: Encore,\u201d slid to seventh place with $4.4 million domestically and $14.4 million overseas. But the Marvel re-release\u2019s second week allowed \u201cEndgame\u201d to just nudge ahead of \u201cAvatar\u201d to reclaim the title of highest grossing film ever, not accounting for inflation. The two films have traded spots in recent years with re-releases. \u201cEndgame\u201d now tallies $2.9255 billion, while \u201cAvatar\u201d has $2.9237 billion.<\/p>\n
The rest of the top-sellers in cinemas over the weekend were holdovers: Zach Cregger\u2019s video game adaptation\u00a0\u201cResident Evil\u201d\u00a0for Sony Pictures; Lance Oppenheim\u2019s A24 drama\u00a0\u201cPrimetime,\u201d\u00a0with Robert Pattinson as \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d host Chris Hansen; and Paramount\u2019s\u00a0\u201cHeart of the Beast,\u201d\u00a0starring Brad Pitt as a retired veteran who treks through the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog after a plane crash.<\/p>\n
In its third week, \u201cResident Evil\u201d came in second with $12.5 million. \u201cHeart of the Beast\u201d followed with $11 million. And \u201cPrimetime\u201d collected $8 million in its second weekend.<\/p>\n
Top 10 movies by domestic box office<\/h4>\n
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:<\/p>\n
1. \u201cVerity,\u201d $32.6 million.<\/p>\n
2. \u201cResident Evil,\u201d $12.5 million.<\/p>\n
3. \u201cHeart of the Beast,\u201d $11 million.<\/p>\n
4. \u201cPrimetime,\u201d $8 million.<\/p>\n
5. \u201cDigger,\u201d $8 million.<\/p>\n
6. \u201cForgotten Island,\u201d $7.2 million.<\/p>\n
7. \u201cAvengers: Endgame: Encore,\u201d $4.4 million.<\/p>\n
8. \u201cDrishyam: The Conclusion,\u201d $2.7 million.<\/p>\n
9. \u201cPractical Magic 2,\u201d $2.7 million.<\/p>\n
10. \u201cSpider-Man: Brand New Day,\u201d $2.5 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Tom #Cruise #suffers #worst #movie #debuts #career #Digger #flops<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the cusp of the studio\u2019s me… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2398,2568,5274,9089,9090,2485,1384,5901,2798,7982],"class_list":["post-6000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-career","tag-cruise","tag-debuts","tag-digger","tag-flops","tag-movie","tag-movies","tag-suffers","tag-tom","tag-worst"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n