On paper, it all sounded great. The superstar Tom Cruise meets the auteur Alejandro G. Iñárritu 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. Iñárritu, who had made two very different films, “Birdman” and “The Revenant,” into back-to-back best picture nominees.

But that was over a decade ago.

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, “Digger” 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.

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 — Mr. Cruise only flies private — the studio could lose $125 million to $150 million in total, making it one of the biggest flops of the year.

It is an extraordinary capper for a year that has been marred by misfires. None of Warner Bros.’ 2026 films has grossed more than $100 million, and “Supergirl” and “The Bride” both produced big losses for the studio.

Now, “Digger” 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 “Sinners” and “Weapons” and its big Oscar winner, “One Battle After Another.”

Warner Bros. executives declined to comment on the film’s performance but industry watchers are calling it the end of an era.

“This was an eccentric story, and WB deserves credit for taking the risk,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. “But ‘Digger’ 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.”

In contrast, Amazon MGM released “Verity,” 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.

Directed by Michael Showalter, “Verity” received weak reviews, though it was not the worst reviewed of the four Hoover projects. That title belongs to “Regretting You,” from October 2025. It’s also not the best performing one either. That was “It Ends with Us,” which earned $351 million worldwide. “Verity” 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’t have to do much more to become profitable.

The movie was also Anne Hathaway’s fifth theatrical movie of the year, and with “Verity” hitting No. 1, it will mark the actress’s 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.

The film has been embraced by audiences, primarily women, who turned the novel into a best seller.