‘Verity’ Thrills $4.5M Previews, ‘Digger’ Shovels $1M+ – Box Office Update

Amazon MGM Studio’s Colleen Hoover thriller Verity grossed $4.5M in its overall previews, which is right where it should for arguably the author’s second most popular novel-to-the-screen after It Ends With Us. That figure is lower than the $7M previews of the author’s mega box office hit It Ends With Us ($50M opening) and it’s ahead of the $1.9M preview cash of her Reminders of Him from earlier this year ($17.9M). Hoover’s Regretting You last fall, which Paramount released, didn’t report preview figures from 500 screens. The weekend outlook for the Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett movie is $30M+.

Critics have no patience for Verity, but they didn’t have patience for It Ends With Us (55% Rotten), Reminders of Him (56%) or Regretting You (29%). Audience scores, driven by women, on Hoover pics outshine the critics with Regretting You at 83%, It Ends With Us at 87% and Reminders of Him also at 87% certified fresh.

On a night when word leaked that Warner Bros Motion Picture Chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy weren’t making the jump to the new combined Paramount Warner Bros merger, the studio’s Tom Cruise starring, Alejandro Iñárritu directed $125M-$160M+ satire, Digger, was soft everywhere with $1.2M previews. That’s lower than the preview of last fall’s One Battle After Another ($3.1M, $22M opening). The movie will be lucky to open to north of $10M in North America. Any good news here? Um, the cash so far is higher than the $770K previews made by Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed $125M epic Megalopolis which opened via Lionsgate to $4M.