Tom Cruise is going through one of the most uncomfortable moments of his box office career. His new film, Digger, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is on track to close its opening weekend in North America with around $8 million, the actor's worst opening in nearly two decades.
The figure is significant because this is not a small or experimental production in financial terms. Digger is a high-budget political satire, estimated between $125 million and over $160 million, and it arrives just as Warner Bros. is undergoing its final integration into the new Skydance, scheduled for October 6.
A start well below expectations
The film grossed nearly $3.4 million on Friday and is projected to reach that $8 million mark over the full weekend across 3,321 theaters in the United States and Canada. The figure is even below the $12 to $15 million range that was being projected before the premiere.
To find a worse debut for Tom Cruise, one must go back to 2007, when Lions for Lambs, directed by Robert Redford, opened with $6.7 million. The key difference is the budget: that film cost about $35 million, far from the expenditure of Digger.
A clearly divided audience reception
Digger earned a C+ on CinemaScore, identical to the grade Lions for Lambs received at the time. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film maintains a 71% audience approval rating, compared to 52% among critics, confirming a polarized response.
PostTrak data places the direct recommendation at around 47%, a modest percentage. The audience that has flocked to theaters has been predominantly male (73%) and young, with nearly 60% of attendees between 18 and 34 years old.
A good portion of the revenue is also concentrated in coastal markets and premium formats like IMAX and PLF, which account for nearly half of the earnings, a sign that the film is functioning as a niche proposal rather than a massive release.
A campaign that failed to connect
Pre-release marketing also seems to have played a role. Social interest showed a notable decline in the days leading up to the launch, with viewers unable to clearly identify what kind of film was being sold to them.
The confusion makes sense if one observes the content of Digger itself: Tom Cruise appears transformed as a bald, grotesque-looking oil tycoon, while the plot combines political satire, apocalyptic western elements, and a meta component that was poorly explained in the trailers.
The contrast with Cruise’s recent image
Throughout his career, Cruise has alternated between major commercial productions and risky auteur projects, such as Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, Born on the Fourth of July, or Collateral.
However, his current image is strongly linked to Mission: Impossible and Top Gun: Maverick, franchises that have solidified him as a champion of big-screen spectacle. Digger deliberately moves away from that profile, which could explain some of the initial rejection from the actor's usual audience.
Verity dominates the box office weekend
While Digger sinks, Verity, an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel starring Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett, achieves a much more solid start, with an estimated $33.6 million after grossing $15.1 million on Friday.
Verity stands as the undisputed leader of the weekend, ahead of Resident Evil, Heart of the Beast, Primetime, and Digger itself, despite also receiving a C+ on CinemaScore.
A symbolic blow for Warner Bros.
Digger effectively becomes the last major release from Warner Bros. before its final integration into the new Skydance. The move coincides with the departure of Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, who were in charge of the studio's film division, while Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein assume new roles in the resulting structure.
The project represented the previous management's bet on combining stars, prestigious filmmakers, and high-budget original productions, a strategy that had worked with titles like Sinners or One Battle After Another, but which in this case exposes the risk of failing to connect with the audience.
Can Digger recover in the coming weeks?
Warner Bros. is hopeful that a future awards conversation will help sustain the film in theaters, although the initial data leaves little room for optimism. Word of mouth is lukewarm, direct recommendation is low, and interest is concentrated in urban markets and premium formats.
The commercial result does not necessarily invalidate the artistic value of the proposal. Digger is a risky project at a time when major studios are reducing these types of bets, which could give it a different life in the long run. But in strictly economic terms, the data is clear: Tom Cruise has signed his worst opening in nearly twenty years, with a film whose high budget makes that start a serious problem for Warner Bros.
