Digger opens to $8 million, Tom Cruise's weakest debut in 19 years
The Alejandro G. Iñárritu film opens Friday. Tracking has fallen from $30 million to as little as $8 million, and the reviews are brutal.
Tom Cruise has a new movie in theaters. Almost nobody went to see it.
Digger, the R-rated satire from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, opened to $8 million from 3,321 theaters, per weekend estimates reported by Variety. It earned $12 million internationally across 73 markets, for a $20 million worldwide total. Final studio numbers are expected Monday afternoon.
The film finished fifth at the domestic box office. It is Cruise's weakest opening since 2007's Lions for Lambs, which debuted to $6.7 million.
Audiences gave Digger a C+ CinemaScore. Critics were colder: it sits at 51 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The budget math
The numbers are rough on their own. They look worse next to the budget.
Variety puts the production cost at $160 million to $180 million, a figure Warner Bros. disputes. The Hollywood Reporter puts it at $125 million. Marketing cost roughly $100 million on top of that.
Analysts say the film would need $300 million to $350 million worldwide to break even. That points to a potential theatrical loss of $150 million to $200 million.
The fall
The opening is a long way from where tracking started.
Early tracking from Box Office Theory had the film at $20 million to $29 million. NRG's tracking dropped to around $19 million. Variety then put it at $12 million to $15 million. Days before release, Page Six reported it could fall as low as $8 million. It did.
The reviews
The review embargo lifted last Tuesday morning. The top critics were not kind.
The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney wrote that the film is “so meta that you watch in excruciating weariness as it disappears up its own ass and then realize to your dismay that there's another eardrum-shattering hour left to endure.”
The New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski gave it a zero, a score he almost never hands out. The Boston Globe also gave it a zero, calling it “the worst movie of Tom Cruise's career.”
Del Toro defends it
Not everyone is piling on. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro defended Digger on social media Monday morning, calling an industry headline about its opening “petty,” per Entertainment Weekly.
The film
Digger was supposed to be Cruise's awards play. It is his first non-franchise movie in nine years, after three Mission: Impossible films and Top Gun: Maverick. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a billionaire oil tycoon racing to prove he is humanity's savior after triggering a global environmental catastrophe. Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Emma D'Arcy and Sophie Wilde co-star.
Back at CinemaCon in April, Cruise told theater owners, “My film family, you know I'm here for you, and I love you.”
What Warner Bros. says
Warner Bros. leaned into the bad press before release, rushing out a video on X urging audiences to “decide for yourself.” The clip opens with a movie influencer calling Digger an ambitious film that will divide audiences, then cuts to Cruise's oil baron shouting at his critics.
Boxoffice Pro analyst Daniel Loria said the film performed more like a small specialty release than a Cruise tentpole. He argued it is unfair to compare the film with Cruise's big action franchises. Its style is closer to Iñárritu's Birdman, which won Best Picture. The problem is the price tag: Birdman cost $18 million.
The final numbers land Monday. The estimates say $8 million. The studio is still asking you to decide for yourself.
