‘Verity' is 45% Rotten, but Colleen Hoover Fans Won’t Care: Box Office Tracking Points to $35M Opening

The reviews for Michael Showalter's "Verity" are in, and it's not pretty. The film sits at a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 44 on Metacritic, which, quite frankly, is about what was expected from the fourth Colleen Hoover adaptation to hit theaters. Dakota

Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer hired to finish the bestselling series of injured author Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), only to discover a manuscript of disturbing confessions about Verity's husband, played by Josh Hartnett.

The source material has its fans, and plenty of detractors, but the consensus on the film seems to land somewhere between "guilty pleasure" and "dull misfire." I skipped Tuesday’s press screening, so I’m not going to judge, but this was never on my must-see list.

Showalter had turned into a hired-hand rom-com pro, with a filmography that includes “The Big Sick,” by far his best film, “The Idea of You,” “Spoiler Alert,” “The Lovebirds,” and “Hello, My Name Is Doris.” He also wrote “Wet Hot American Summer,” his feature writing debut — but that feels like ages ago.

The recurring complaint when it comes to “Verity” is that Showalter, unlike Paul Feig in “The Housemaid,” never commits to the trashiness this material demands. That's the problem in a nutshell. This should have been a sleazy '90s-style erotic thriller, and instead it plays it safe. For shame!

None of that will matter much at the box office. Hoover is a hot literary name, and that means "Verity" is currently projected to open to around $35M this weekend, which would be a solid result for a mid-budget adult thriller.

Hoover's fanbase is loyal, and "It Ends With Us" already proved that critics have little influence over this audience. Add the fact that its main competition this weekend — sigh —"Digger," which is getting hammered by critics, and "Verity" could easily triple that film’s opening weekend.