New To The Monday Morning Box Office Hangover Report?
Every Monday, here on the Monday Morning Box Office Hangover Report we break down the weekend box office: who won, who didn’t, and what the numbers are really saying about what audiences want right now. It’s your post-weekend debrief with a little cocktail bite.
Opening Pour
Well, October opened with one movie finding the audience it was built for and another discovering that even Tom Cruise can be susceptible to bad buzz.
Verity took the weekend with an estimated $32.6 million domestic, giving Amazon MGM another successful Colleen Hoover adaptation and proving once again that female-skewing literary adaptations remain one of the most reliable counterweights to superheroes, horror, and giant franchise machinery. Meanwhile, Digger, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s expensive Tom Cruise satire, stumbled into theaters with just $8 million domestic.
That is not just underperforming. That is waking up Monday morning, looking at the credit card receipt, and wondering who authorized bottle service.
Top 5 Domestic Films
(Weekend estimates, October 2 to October 4, 2026)
- Verity – $32.62M
- Resident Evil – $12.50M
- Heart of the Beast – $11.00M
- Primetime – $8.00M
- Digger – $8.00M
Recap
The biggest thing to notice this past weekend is that Verity did not need a massive event-film opening to dominate. Its $32.6 million debut was more than two-and-a-half times the haul of second-place Resident Evil, which added another $12.5 million in weekend three and pushed its domestic total to about $124.9 million. Heart of the Beast held third with $11 million, while Primetime and Digger essentially tied at around $8 million apiece.
The weekend was not gigantic overall, but it tells a useful story: Audiences are still showing up for recognizable genre hooks, literary adaptations, horror, and star-driven material, but they are not automatically rewarding expensive prestige swings just because famous people made them.
Highlights and Insights
1) Verity proved Colleen Hoover is now a theatrical brand
Whether critics like these movies is almost beside the point. Verity opened to $32.6 million and continued the commercial streak of Colleen Hoover adaptations. Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and a pulpy psychological-thriller hook gave the movie enough of an identity to pull audiences away from holdovers and put it comfortably at No. 1.
There is a lesson buried in there for Hollywood. You do not always need a $200 million tentpole to create an event. Sometimes you need a built-in readership, recognizable stars, and a story people want to gossip about afterward.
2) Resident Evil is turning into a very healthy fall hit
The reboot took second with $12.5 million, down about 46% from the previous weekend, and has now reached roughly $124.9 million domestic after 17 days. That is a strong result for a horror-video-game adaptation and another reminder that genre audiences have been one of the most dependable parts of the theatrical business all year. It is no longer the flashy new thing, but it is doing exactly what studios want a successful release to do: hold, accumulate, and stay relevant after opening weekend.
3) Heart of the Beast held better than you might expect
Brad Pitt’s wilderness survival thriller earned $11 million in its second weekend, down roughly 45%, bringing its domestic total to about $38.4 million. That is not runaway-hit territory, but it is respectable business for an adult-skewing thriller that has to compete with horror, prestige fare, and a buzzy new literary adaptation. The fact that it remained ahead of Digger is also not something Warner Bros. executives will particularly enjoy discussing.
4) Primetime is hanging in there
A24’s Primetime collected another $8 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic total to about $34.1 million. The drop was steeper, about 58%, but this is still a smaller-scale adult drama hanging around the upper end of the box office while much larger productions struggle to justify themselves.That is becoming a recurring 2026 story: budget discipline matters. A movie does not have to gross $300 million if it did not cost $200 million to make.
5) And then there is Digger
This is the hangover.
Tom Cruise. Alejandro G. Iñárritu. A reported production budget somewhere between $125 million and $150 million, plus an estimated $100 million marketing spend. The result? $8 million domestic and another $12 million internationally from 74 markets. Audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore, while Rotten Tomatoes was sitting around 51%. For context, AP notes that this is one of the weakest openings of Cruise’s career and an especially painful result for Warner Bros. as the studio heads into its Paramount merger. This was supposed to be an awards-season swing. Instead, it may become one of 2026’s most expensive cautionary tales.
Who Had the Rough Morning After?
It’s called the Monday Morning Box Office Hangover Report, after all. and there is no debate this week. It is Digger.
When an $8 million opening comes attached to a modestly budgeted indie, you shrug and move on. When it comes attached to a movie that may have $250 million or more tied up in production and marketing, the aspirin bottle comes out.
Cruise has spent years insulating himself with franchises like Mission: Impossible and Top Gun: Maverick, so seeing him front a genuine theatrical misfire feels almost strange. But star power is not bulletproof, and neither is auteur prestige. If audiences do not understand why they need to see the movie, they stay home.
A Crazy Thing At The Box Office
There was also some historical weirdness happening farther down the chart.
The re-release of Avengers: Endgame earned another $4.4 million domestic this weekend and, with additional international grosses, pushed the movie back ahead of Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, not adjusted for inflation. Endgame now stands at roughly $2.9255 billion, compared with Avatar at around $2.9237 billion. Those two movies are apparently going to keep stealing the crown from each other until the end of time.
What’s Next?
The more interesting question coming out of this weekend is whether Verity has real legs or whether the Hoover audience rushed out immediately. Its opening is strong enough that even a normal second-weekend decline should keep it competitive, while Resident Evil has already established itself as a dependable fall performer.
The bigger industry story, though, may be what happens after Digger. Warner Bros. is heading into its merger with Paramount, and AP reports that the studio’s strategy of financing expensive auteur-driven original films could be reevaluated under new ownership. That would be an unfortunate lesson if Hollywood decides the problem was “original movies” rather than “a $125 million to $150 million movie audiences did not particularly want.”
There is a difference.
Final Pour
That’s this week’s Monday Morning Box Office Hangover Report. October opened with a neat little reminder that audiences are not nearly as predictable as studios would like them to be. Verity turned a bestselling novel, recognizable stars, and deliciously trashy psychological intrigue into a clean No. 1 debut. Resident Evil kept proving horror has legs. Heart of the Beast held its ground. And one of the most famous movie stars alive learned that even Tom Cruise occasionally has to wake up, look at the weekend numbers, and ask somebody to put on another pot of coffee.
That, friends, is a box office hangover. 🍸🍿
