Tom Cruise's 'Digger' earns $20m globally on a $150m budget in one of his worst-ever debuts

Tom Cruise's dark comedy 'Digger' opened to just $8 million in North America and $12 million across roughly 74 international markets over its opening weekend — a $20 million global debut against a reported production budget of at least $125 million and a marketing spend estimated at $100–125 million. It is one of the worst openings of Cruise's career and, according to Vulture, the year's biggest flop.

Warner Bros. says the Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed film cost $125 million to produce, but sources cited by Vulture put the true figure between $160 million and $180 million, with marketing adding roughly another $100–125 million. With audiences giving the film a 'C' on CinemaScore — a grade that typically signals collapsing word-of-mouth — analysts say it has virtually no chance of breaking even and could lose as much as $150 million to $200 million in total.

The film, a climate-change satire in which Cruise plays oil tycoon Digger Rockwell beneath layers of prosthetic makeup, earned a 51% score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Fox News. Critics largely dismissed it as a strained farce, though Cruise's over-the-top performance drew comparatively warmer notices. Warner Bros. reportedly responded to the bad reviews by running 'decide for yourself' ads in the lead-up to release, and opening-weekend estimates were revised down from an earlier projection of $12 million to $15 million domestically.

Warner Bros. spent blockbuster money on what is essentially an art-house film. But even Tom Cruise can't transform this structurally chaotic satire into a four-quadrant event. The studio financed it on pedigree. That's where most of these passion projects run into trouble — you're spending too much money and you're not looking at the actual film itself.— Jeff Bock, senior media analyst, Exhibitor Relations Co.

The weekend's actual No. 1 film was Amazon MGM's 'Verity,' a psychological thriller adapted from Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel and directed by Michael Showalter. Starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, it debuted to $32.6 million in North America, extending what Fox News describes as a winning streak for Hoover adaptations at the box office. Sony Pictures' 'Resident Evil' came in second with $12.5 million, and Paramount's 'Heart of the Beast,' starring Brad Pitt, grossed $11 million.

'Digger' had been positioned as a potential awards-season heavyweight, according to The Guardian, dated almost exactly a year after Warner Bros.' 'One Battle After Another' — a similarly large-budget, auteur-driven film that grossed $213.2 million worldwide and won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The calculus, according to a studio insider cited by Vulture, was to replicate the synergy between an Oscar-anointed director and an A-list star. 'Mike and Pam are in the gambling business,' the insider said of Warner Bros. co-chairs Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy. 'Tom Cruise is a top-three actor. But the script is nonsensical. They're like, Fuck it. Let's go! We're doing it.'

That gamble ended DeLuca and Abdy's tenure. Vulture reports the two co-chairs were fired on the Friday 'Digger' opened — the same day Skydance's $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery was set to close on Tuesday. The Guardian notes that Paramount Skydance received approval from the US district court for the $110 billion deal last Wednesday, with mass layoffs 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. Paramount does not have a recent history of making big, auteur-driven films like this — that strategy appears to be over and out.— David A. Gross, film consultant

Analysts are careful to separate the film's failure from a broader verdict on Cruise as a star. Paul Dergarabedian of Rentrak told Fox News Digital that 'Digger' was 'always a much tougher commercial proposition than the kind of broad, action-driven, franchise-oriented films audiences traditionally associate with Cruise,' and that studios will continue to want to work with him. Daniel Loria of Boxoffice Pro, speaking to Vulture, pointed out that Cruise has a 45-year history of taking on challenging character roles for directors including Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and Steven Spielberg — and that 'Digger' fits that pattern rather than breaking it.

This wasn't going to be a Tom Cruise vehicle. This is an Iñárritu film starring Tom Cruise. He's always been very good about balancing between being a popcorn-movie star and challenging films. He takes these swings for filmmakers. He doesn't take them for his persona.— Daniel Loria, editorial director, Boxoffice Pro

For context, Vulture notes that Iñárritu's 'Birdman' (2014) was made for $18 million, went on to gross $103.2 million and won Best Picture. Cruise's last major box-office disappointment before this was 2017's 'The Mummy,' which grossed $409.2 million worldwide on a $195 million budget, according to The Guardian — a far less severe outcome than 'Digger.' His lowest previous opening was 2007's 'Lions for Lambs,' according to Vulture.

Tell me who green-lights a movie like this now. If you look at the studio landscape, I don't even know. Maybe Universal. But they're a lot tighter with how they budget films. So Warner Bros. was kind of the last bastion of auteur glory. And now Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdy are gone.— Jeff Bock, senior media analyst, Exhibitor Relations Co.

The Guardian notes that in what it describes as a flush year for Hollywood, Warner Bros. has failed to get a single film to $100 million at the US box office in 2026, though its December release 'Dune: Part III' is expected to cross that threshold. The studio's 2025 slate, by contrast, included 'Sinners,' 'Weapons,' and 'One Battle After Another,' which won Best Picture.

Why it matters — The collapse of 'Digger' — arriving as a new ownership group takes over Warner Bros. — may mark the end of the era in which major studios handed nine-figure budgets to auteur directors for original, non-franchise films.

Sources differ on Production budget for 'Digger': $125 million (Warner Bros. official figure) (vulture.com) vs $160m–$180m (inside sources) (vulture.com) vs $125m–$150m (foxnews.com)

Sources differ on CinemaScore audience grade: C (vulture.com) vs C+ (theguardian.com)

Sources differ on Marketing spend estimate: $100 million (theguardian.com) vs ~$125 million (vulture.com)

Reported by variety.com, foxnews.com, theguardian.com, vulture.com, deadline.com