Warner Bros.' "Digger" flopped in its opening weekend, handing Tom Cruise one of the worst debuts of his career and delivering a bitter final note for Warner Bros. as a standalone studio, all on the cusp of its merger with Paramount.

The No. 1 spot in North American theaters instead went to Amazon MGM's "Verity," which debuted with $32.6 million and extended the box-office streak for Colleen Hoover adaptations. Directed by Michael Showalter, the film stars Dakota Johnson as a writer hired to ghostwrite a book series by an incapacitated author, played by Anne Hathaway.

Still, all eyes were on "Digger," one of the year's biggest gambles. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's critically panned satire grossed a paltry $8 million domestically. Cruise is typically a major draw overseas, but international sales were also weak, totaling just $12 million from 74 markets. That amounts to a worldwide debut of roughly $20 million.

After reviews so harsh that Warner Bros. opted to run "decide for yourself" ads, estimates for "Digger" had been revised downward over the past week. It is a painfully rough start for a movie that cost at least $125 million to make, with reports pegging the production budget closer to $150 million. Marketing spend is estimated at another $100 million on top of that — meaning the film's reported outlays top $200 million, about ten times its opening haul.

"Digger" had been positioned as a potential awards-season heavyweight, dated almost exactly one year after Warner Bros.' "One Battle After Another." Like film, it was a politically charged release that handed a large budget to a top filmmaker working from an original story. But this big swing by Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy won't pay off as well as "One Battle After Another," which grossed $213.2 million worldwide and, more importantly, won best picture at the Academy Awards.

The disappointing opening comes just as Paramount Skydance is closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. After U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved the $110 billion deal on Wednesday, Paramount said it would close the merger on Tuesday.

In a flush year for Hollywood, Warner Bros. has failed to get a single film to $100 million domestically, though its December release, "Dune: Part III," will easily cross that threshold. De Luca and Abdy are expected to depart Warner Bros. this week, and mass layoffs are anticipated to follow.

"'Digger' collapsed this weekend and the new management of the combined Paramount and Warner Bros., David Ellison and Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, will soon decide what kind of movies they want from WB," wrote David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office figures. "Paramount does not have a recent history of making big, auteur-driven films like this — that strategy appears to be over and out."

Critics, who gave the film a 51% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, slammed "Digger" as a strained climate change farce, though Cruise's over-the-top performance was received more warmly. Audiences agreed, awarding the film a "C+" CinemaScore. The Rotten Tomatoes figure reflects the share of counted critics who rated the film positively, while CinemaScore grades opening-night audiences on an A+ to F scale — leaving "Digger" barely above the midpoint with critics and well short of top marks with moviegoers.

Cruise has spent most of the last decade starring in "Mission: Impossible" movies and "Top Gun: Maverick," franchises that have allowed him to remain a top action hero into his 60s. The 64-year-old's last major box-office disappointment was 2017's "The Mummy," which grossed $409.2 million worldwide on a $195 million budget. Even that film, which ultimately earned more than twice what it cost, was considered a disappointment — a measure of how high the commercial bar typically sits for a Cruise-led release. To help sell "Digger," Cruise pulled out all the stops, even granting his first lengthy magazine interview in years.

Last weekend's top film, "Avengers Endgame: Encore," slid to seventh place with $4.4 million domestically and $14.4 million overseas. But the Marvel re-release's second week allowed "Endgame" to just nudge ahead of "Avatar" and reclaim the title of highest-grossing film ever, not accounting for inflation. The two films have traded the top spot in recent years through re-releases; "Endgame" now tallies $2.9255 billion, while "Avatar" stands at $2.9237 billion.

The rest of the weekend's top sellers were holdovers: Zach Cregger's video game adaptation "Resident Evil" for Sony Pictures; Lance Oppenheim's A24 drama "Primetime," with Robert Pattinson portraying "To Catch a Predator" host Chris Hansen; and Paramount's "Heart of the Beast," starring Brad Pitt as a retired veteran who treks through the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog after a plane crash. In its third week, "Resident Evil" came in second with $12.5 million. "Heart of the Beast" followed with $11 million, and "Primetime" collected $8 million in its second weekend.

Final domestic figures will be released Monday. The following list reflects estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:

1. "Verity," $32.6 million.
2. "Resident Evil," $12.5 million.
3. "Heart of the Beast," $11 million.
4. "Primetime," $8 million.
5. "Digger," $8 million.
6. "Forgotten Island," $7.2 million.
7. "Avengers: Endgame: Encore," $4.4 million.
8. "Drishyam: The Conclusion," $2.7 million.
9. "Practical Magic 2," $2.7 million.
10. "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," $2.5 million.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.