{"id":95193,"date":"2026-10-04T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=95193"},"modified":"2026-10-03T19:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T01:15:08","slug":"digger-warner-bros-last-release-before-merger-is-a-major-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/digger-warner-bros-last-release-before-merger-is-a-major-flop\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Digger,’ Warner Bros.’ last release before merger, is a major flop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"'Digger,'<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On paper, it all sounded great. The superstar Tom Cruise meets the auteur Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu and together they construct a satire lampooning the power-hungry billionaire class. Warner Bros., the filmmaker-friendly studio under the guidance of Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, believe in Mr. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, who had made two very different films, \u201cBirdman\u201d and \u201cThe Revenant,\u201d into back-to-back best picture nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that was over a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether audiences were rejecting the idea of their never-aging action star Mr. Cruise in a quirky dramatic role playing a gray-haired older man or they were following the dismal reviews of the film, \u201cDigger\u201d is on track in its opening weekend to be a resounding flop. Audiences gave the film a C, according to the marketing research company CinemaScore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening in over 3,000 locations, the R-rated movie grossed an estimated $8 million for the weekend. The studio has said the film cost $125 million but others put the total closer to $150 million because of a delay in production after a cast member, John Goodman, fell on the set and had to recover before shooting could continue. With nearly $100 million more spent on marketing \u2014 Mr. Cruise only flies private \u2014 the studio could lose $125 million to $150 million in total, making it one of the biggest flops of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an extraordinary capper for a year that has been marred by misfires. None of Warner Bros.\u2019 2026 films has grossed more than $100 million, and \u201cSupergirl\u201d and \u201cThe Bride\u201d both produced big losses for the studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, \u201cDigger\u201d will be the final movie Warner Bros. will release as a stand-alone studio before it is scooped up by Paramount. (The deal is set to close on Tuesday.) That is quite a different fate from a year ago, when the studio was riding high on its box office successes with \u201cSinners\u201d and \u201cWeapons\u201d and its big Oscar winner, \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warner Bros. executives declined to comment on the film\u2019s performance but industry watchers are calling it the end of an era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was an eccentric story, and WB deserves credit for taking the risk,\u201d said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. \u201cBut \u2018Digger\u2019 is not working, and Paramount, headed by David Ellison, Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, will soon decide what kind of movies they want from WB. Paramount does not have a recent history of making big, auteur-driven films like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, Amazon MGM released \u201cVerity,\u201d the fourth adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel in the past two years, to an estimated $33 million. That put the psychological thriller in first place for the weekend and in the middle of the four adaptations, based on gross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Michael Showalter, \u201cVerity\u201d received weak reviews, though it was not the worst reviewed of the four Hoover projects. That title belongs to \u201cRegretting You,\u201d from October 2025. It\u2019s also not the best performing one either. That was \u201cIt Ends with Us,\u201d which earned $351 million worldwide. \u201cVerity\u201d will still be a sizable hit for the streamer. Earning an additional estimated $30 million overseas, on a production budget of $40 million, it doesn\u2019t have to do much more to become profitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie was also Anne Hathaway\u2019s fifth theatrical movie of the year, and with \u201cVerity\u201d hitting No. 1, it will mark the actress\u2019s third first-place finisher this year. Ms Hathaway, who is also a producer on the film, plays Verity Crawford, a famous novelist who has been left in a catatonic state after a car accident. Dakota Johnson plays the struggling writer brought in to finish the novel Verity has left but all does not appear as it seems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film has been embraced by audiences, primarily women, who turned the novel into a best seller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n