Entertainment · NEWS EXPLAINER
Verity leads Friday box office; Digger projected at $7.5–8M for weekend
The October 2 opening-day figures put Verity at $15.1 million and Digger at $3.4 million. Saturday's weekend forecasts remain estimates, with previews already included.
Verity led the North American box office on its opening Friday, October 2, with a reported $15.102 million, while Tom Cruise's Digger took $3.4 million. The Numbers' daily chart placed Digger third, behind Resident Evil's $3.625 million.
Saturday's reporting pointed toward a $33–33.6 million opening weekend for Verity and roughly $7.5–8 million for Digger. Those are projections for the October 2–4 weekend, not completed weekend totals.
Two wide releases, very different starts
Both films launched across more than 3,300 theaters, so the opening-day gap came with broadly comparable release footprints. The reported totals work out to about $4,303 per theater for Verity and $1,024 for Digger, as listed by The Numbers.
Verity adapts Colleen Hoover's novel, with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett in the cast. Digger, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, puts Cruise in a dark comedy. Ticket sales alone do not establish which film an individual viewer will prefer.
Previews are already inside Friday
The Numbers says Verity's opening-day figure includes $4.5 million from previews; Digger's includes $1.2 million. Adding those preview amounts again would count the same sales twice.
Subtracting the reported previews leaves approximately $10.60 million for Verity and $2.20 million for Digger. Those remainders are calculations from the reported figures, not separate studio announcements. The opening-day total also forms part of the weekend total.
Why the weekend estimates differ
TheWrap's Saturday report put Verity near $33 million, while Variety reported $33.6 million. The Numbers identified $33.6 million as Amazon MGM's early projection, distinct from its own higher model estimate.
For Digger, TheWrap and Variety pointed to $7.5 million. The Numbers' model suggested about $8 million, down from its $11 million forecast a day earlier. These figures come from different forecasts at a particular stage of the weekend; they should not be averaged into a supposedly confirmed result.
What remains unsettled
TheWrap reported C+ CinemaScore grades for both films. Those initial audience responses and opening-day receipts leave their longer theatrical runs unresolved; strong early sales alone cannot demonstrate lasting demand.
The next figures to check are the Sunday studio projections and subsequent reported totals. A North American opening-weekend gross cannot, by itself, settle a film's worldwide performance or profit: distributors share ticket revenue with theaters, and the opening weekend covers only part of a release.
