Tom Cruise’s Digger lost 60% of its audience in its second weekend, Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning opened below the lowest forecast on the board, and Angel and the Badman left the same weekend with a B+ CinemaScore, the highest grade among the three new wide releases.
Digger, the Warner Bros. climate satire, has taken in $14.4 million domestically against a reported budget between $125 million and $180 million. The Social Reckoning, Sony’s follow-up to The Social Network, opened to $5.5 million. Angel and the Badman, the remake of the John Wayne western, landed in ninth place with $2.06 million.
Digger Falls 60% to $3.2 Million and Sits at $14.4 Million Domestic
Digger took in $3.2 million from 3,321 theaters over Oct. 9-11, a 60% decline from its $8 million opening. Variety puts the domestic total at $14 million and the global total at $35.3 million. Box Office Pro called the opening Cruise’s lowest since Lions for Lambs made $6.7 million in 2007, and audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu directed the film, which stars Cruise as an oil magnate and features Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons. Its poster tagline read “A comedy of catastrophic proportions.” Cruise told the On Film With Kevin McCarthy podcast, “I feel very much like we’re going to make something that is a lasting piece of cinema.”
Celebrity friends tried to help. Variety reports that Anne Hathaway, Jane Fonda, Guillermo del Toro and Mandy Patinkin praised the film and urged people to go, then adds: “(Spoiler alert: It hasn’t worked.)”
The cost is where the numbers get large. Reported budgets run from $125 million to about $180 million, Variety says Warner Bros. spent above $160 million, and AP reports around $100 million more on marketing. Loss estimates run from $150 million to $250 million, with Variety projecting $245 million in theatrical losses. The film opened days before Paramount Skydance closed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Social Reckoning Opens to $5.5 Million, Under the Lowest Forecast
The Social Reckoning opened to $5.5 million from 2,606 screens, below the lowest-end forecast from Box Office Pro’s prediction panel. Variety had projected $7 million to $8 million. The film earned a B- CinemaScore and a 54% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, and its global total is $9 million against a reported cost of about $30 million. The Social Network opened to $22 million in 2010 and finished with $224 million worldwide, per Variety.
Sorkin wrote and directed this one. Jeremy Strong replaces Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, David Fincher is not involved, and the cast includes Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White. Sony has called it a companion piece to the 2010 film, not a sequel. Sorkin told TheWrap before release, “It’ll be graded on a curve with ‘The Social Network.’”
The reviews did not help. TheWrap’s William Bibbiani wrote, “we’re forced to wonder if Aaron Sorkin knows what the word ‘reckoning’ means.” The New Yorker’s Richard Brody wrote, “Sorkin doesn’t look beyond the words on the page, and the film itself appears made with heads down.”
David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research told Variety, “Stories about corporate intrigue, money and power have found a home on TV. They lack the cinematic qualities that excite big-screen audiences.”
Angel and the Badman Earns a B+ From the People Who Bought Tickets
Fandom Pulse is a fan of Angel and the Badman. Moviegoers gave it a B+ CinemaScore, higher than the C+ for Digger, the B- for The Social Reckoning and the D+ for Other Mommy, the weekend’s winner at $27.5 million. The western grossed $2.06 million from 2,263 screens and took ninth place.
Julio Quintana directed this remake of the 1947 John Wayne film, which was Wayne’s first self-financed production. Zachary Levi plays the wounded outlaw Quirt Evans, who is taken in by a rancher’s daughter and offered a life without violence while a marshal closes in. Neal McDonough and Tommy Lee Jones co-star. It is rated PG-13, runs 105 minutes and was shot in New Mexico.
Levi told the Christian Post what drew him to the story: “The whole concept of redemption, I love it.”
A PG-13 western with a redemption story took a B+ from a paying audience in a weekend when much bigger bets did not.
Studio Bets Keep Missing While the Overall Box Office Runs Ahead of 2025
The market itself is up. Variety reports that October revenue is 23% ahead of the same point in 2025, which ended up as the lowest-grossing October in three decades, and Box Office Pro has this weekend’s $85.2 million total up 19.2% on the same weekend a year ago. The misses belong to specific films.
Warner Bros. opened Practical Magic 2 to $30 million in September, at the low end of expectations on a $75 million budget. The Dog Stars opened to $8 million in early September on a reported cost of more than $100 million, per JoBlo. Then came Digger and The Social Reckoning in consecutive weeks, both pitched at adult audiences, both built around topical subjects.
Paul Dergarabedian of Rentrak told AP, “These movies that are topical in nature, sometimes they resonate with the culture, sometimes they don’t.” Variety’s Rebecca Rubin wrote that October “has been sluggish after a stronger-than-expected September at the box office.”
After Digger and The Social Reckoning, will the studios keep spending big on topical adult satire and drama, or take a closer look at the audience that gave Angel and the Badman a B+?
Climate change is a non issue
Alejandro G. Iñárritu clearly was trying to bring back Climate Change Alarmism. And Aaron Sorkin became a Far Left Propagandist.