Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Buried at the Box Office in Warner Bros.’ Brutal Last Stand
Tom Cruise has spent much of his career making movies that feel almost guaranteed to become theatrical events. ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and the ‘Mission: Impossible’ series turned him into the face of the big-screen experience. That’s what made ‘Digger,’ a bold swing from Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, one of the most intriguing gambles of the fall season.
The film, an apocalyptic satire, stars Cruise as Digger Rockwell, a blowhard oil tycoon responsible for an ecological disaster that threatens humanity. Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons round out the cast. It is Cruise’s first non-action movie in over a decade and his first Warner Bros. film in 12 years, and Warner Bros. had positioned it as an awards play hoping to land him a fourth acting Oscar nomination.
Tom Cruise’s DIGGER made only $1.2M in previews yesterday on a massive $180M budget.
— Global Box Office (@GlobalBoxOffice) October 2, 2026
In fact, we’re now projecting the movie to open to less than $10M domestically and under $20M worldwide.
It’s a disaster for WB! pic.twitter.com/URGau5Xjta
The first figures are brutal. According to Deadline, ‘Digger’ earned just $1.2 million in Thursday previews, and the outlet described the film as soft everywhere. Global Box Office responded by projecting an opening of under $10 million domestically and under $20 million worldwide, calling the outcome a disaster for Warner Bros.
The comparisons don’t help. Last year’s ‘One Battle After Another’ made $3.1 million in previews and went on to a $22 million opening. ‘Digger’ did edge out the $770,000 previews of Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis,’ which opened to $4 million, but that is hardly a comforting benchmark. JoBlo predicts the film won’t top $11 million, which would make it Cruise’s weakest opening since ‘Lions for Lambs’ in 2007.
Warner Bros. had been projecting a $12 million to $15 million start, and earlier tracking was as high as $18 million to $20 million. The film opened Friday in more than 3,300 North American locations. ‘Verity,’ by contrast, posted $4.5 million in previews and is on track to take the weekend’s top spot.
The financial stakes make the result tougher to swallow. The official production budget is $125 million, but reports suggest it ballooned to $160 million to $180 million after production ran over schedule, a figure a Warner Bros. spokesperson disputes. Rival executives told Variety that a movie of this size would need a debut near $40 million to justify its cost.
With roughly $100 million spent on marketing, the break-even point reportedly sits near $350 million worldwide, though the studio says it needs about $300 million to recoup costs. That is a mountain to climb with an opening in the single digits. The film would need extraordinary staying power just to approach those numbers.
Reviews have been polarizing. ‘Digger’ debuted with a 52% Rotten Tomatoes score, making it Cruise’s first rotten film since ‘The Mummy’ in 2017 and the lowest-rated movie of Iñárritu’s career. It holds a 45 on Metacritic, and one critic memorably compared it to an overlong sketch given an inexplicably large budget.
Not everyone agrees. Some reviewers praised Cruise’s performance as electric and called the film a bold, ambitious swing with striking visuals. Warner Bros. even leaned into the divisive response with a new spot telling audiences to decide for themselves.
A new trailer for ‘DIGGER’ has been released.
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 9, 2026
In theaters October 2. pic.twitter.com/kTEeFZI14E
The timing could hardly be worse. ‘Digger’ is the final Warner Bros. release as a standalone studio, arriving days before Paramount’s $110 billion merger closes on Oct. 6. It also landed the same night word leaked that film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy won’t be joining the merged company.
It caps a rough 2026 for the studio, which has already weathered underperformers like ‘The Bride!,’ ‘Supergirl’ and ‘The End of Oak Street.’ Looking ahead, DC’s ‘Clayface’ and ‘The Cat in the Hat’ are likely to be inherited by Paramount. For a studio that just a year ago celebrated a Best Picture win, it is a stark reversal.
Whether word of mouth or awards buzz can rescue ‘Digger’ remains to be seen, but the opening-weekend math is brutal.
What do you think about Digger's rough box-office start?
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