Welcome to October, where we’re being haunted by the scariest thing imaginable: a new Colleen Hoover movie!
Actually that’s just me being snarky. Maybe. I’ve never read any of her books. Maybe they’re fantastic. In any case, our number one outing is Verity, the 4th motion picture based on her work, and Anne Hathaway’s 74th movie to come out this year. I have no idea what the fuck this one is even about. While last spring’s Reminders of Him looked like a normal—dare I say even decent—tearjerker, Verity involves…an evil smiley face? Huh? And maybe something about a spooky house and an author with a bad attitude. Maybe. At least one of those things is true.
Verity opened to $32 million, which makes it the second-best premiere in the Hooververse, behind only the $50 million launch for It Ends With Us (which for whatever reason I don’t think is ever going to get its intended sequel). Critics, of course, didn’t have much to smile about here, with the only tea being spilt being that of…um…actually, I don’t have a good tea pun here. Darn.
The “bigger” story this weekend—at least according to media outlets—is Digger, which sees Tom Cruise returning to weird mode as a character that is rather obviously making fun of Elon Musk. Or, if you want to be even more on the nose, the same types of billionaires who just bought out Warner Bros. Yes, Digger flopped hard with just $8 million against a reported $180 million budget, but I take no joy in digging its grave. This is a big swing for the fences—the kind which we are supposed to encourage from a creative standpoint—and the press seems all too happy to kick it around, which I don’t really think is fair. Digger is reportedly the last movie to be released only under the Warner Bros. banner, with the new Skydance branding supposedly being attached to Dune: Part 3 this Christmas.
That said, don’t believe it when people try to tell you Digger’s failure to dig up gold comes from Tom Cruise fatigue, which was the same nonsense angle the media went with when Lions for Lambs bombed back in 2007. “It tanked because Tom Cruise jumped on a couch!” No, it didn’t. It tanked because it was about post-9/11 politics in the Middle East. Cruise has always been a bankable star, and those who are shelling out cash for Digger are doing so because of his presence, not in spite of it.
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
- Verity (AMZ) 3,510 theaters, Fri $15.1M Sat $10M Sun $7.5M 3-day $32.6M/Wk 1
- Resident Evil (Sony) 3,259 (-425) theaters theaters, Fri $3.6M (-47%) Sat $5.4M Sun $3.45M 3-day $12.5M (-46%), Total $124.9M/Wk 3
- Heart of the Beast (Par) 3,481 (+46) theaters, Fri $3.1M (-58%) Sat $4.67M Sun $3.2M 3-day $11M (-45%), Total $38.3M/Wk 2
- Primetime (A24) 2,894 (+20) theaters, Fri $2.49M (-70%) Sat $3.1M Sun $2.35M, 3-day $8M (-57%), Total $34.2M/Wk 2
- Digger (WB) 3,321 theaters, Fri $3.4M, Sat $2.6M Sun $2M 3-day $8M/Wk 1
- Forgotten Island (Uni) 3,555 (+7) theaters, Fri $1.6M (-63%) Sat $3.2M Sun $2.29M 3-day $7.2M (-45%), Total $23.6M/Wk 2
- Avengers Endgame: Encore (Dis) 3,000 (-60) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-90%) Sat $2M Sun $1.3M 3-day $4.4M (-83%), Total $894.6M lifetime/Wk 2 re-release
- Drishyam – The Conclusion (Zee) 541 theaters Fri $826K, Sat $1.1M Sun $789k 3-day $2.7M/Wk 1
- Practical Magic 2 (WB) 2,063 (-1,115) theaters, Fri $750K (-51%) Sat $1.1M Sun $715K 3-day $2.655M (-53%), Total $64.7M/Wk 4
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 1,724 (-685) theaters Fri $585K (-41%) Sat $1.1M Sun $720K 3-day $2.45M (-40%), Total $954.4M/Wk 10