Tom Cruise has spent decades building movies around the expectation that audiences will turn up to see him attempt something unusual. This weekend, that drawing power met one of the weakest openings of his career.
Digger, Cruise’s big-budget collaboration with Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, opened to an estimated $8 million from 3,321 North American locations. The result placed the Warner Bros. satire fifth for the weekend, behind three holdovers and Amazon MGM’s new release Verity.
Overseas audiences added roughly $12 million, bringing Digger‘s worldwide opening to about $20 million. Variety reported that rival studios believe the domestic estimate could settle closer to $7.5 million once final figures are reported Monday.
Verity opened at the opposite end of the chart. The Colleen Hoover adaptation starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett earned $32.6 million domestically and another $30 million overseas, giving it a $62.6 million global launch.
‘Digger’ Opened in Fifth Place Despite a Wide Release
The warning signs appeared before the full weekend. Digger collected approximately $1.2 million from Thursday previews and reached $3.4 million by the end of Friday.
By Sunday, the estimated $8 million total put it behind Verity, Resident Evil, Heart of the Beast and Primetime. Boxoffice Pro reported a $2,409 per-screen average from 3,321 locations.
The fourth and fifth-place finish was particularly close. A24’s Primetime was estimated at $8,000,085 for the weekend, compared with Warner Bros.’ $8 million estimate for Digger.
The opening also marks Cruise’s lowest domestic debut since 2007’s Lions for Lambs, which opened to $6.7 million. Unlike the franchise spectacles that have dominated much of Cruise’s recent career, Digger is an R-rated original satire built around an intentionally grotesque character performance.
Audience reaction offers another challenge for the weeks ahead. Moviegoers gave Digger a C+ CinemaScore, while the film sat at roughly 51 percent among critics on Rotten Tomatoes as the weekend estimates came in.
The Reported Cost Makes an $8 Million Opening Especially Difficult
Variety reports that Warner Bros. originally greenlit Digger for approximately $125 million. Four sources familiar with the production told the trade that the cost eventually climbed to somewhere between $160 million and $180 million after filming ran over schedule, although a Warner Bros. representative disputed those higher figures.
The studio also spent an estimated $100 million on worldwide marketing, according to the trade. Executives familiar with comparable releases told Variety that the movie would need roughly $350 million globally to reach theatrical break-even. Warner Bros. challenged that calculation and placed the threshold closer to $300 million.
Theaters retain a portion of ticket revenue, while Warner Bros. can continue earning money through later digital, streaming and television windows. Variety nevertheless reports that industry executives currently expect the film to lose at least $150 million to $200 million theatrically. That remains a projection based on the movie’s costs and expected box-office trajectory.
‘Verity’ Cost Far Less and Opened More Than Four Times Bigger
Verity‘s performance sharpened the contrast because Amazon MGM’s thriller entered theaters with a far smaller reported investment. The film collected $32.6 million from 3,510 North American locations and matched almost all of that business overseas, adding $30 million from international markets for a $62.6 million global opening.
Boxoffice Pro reports that Verity cost an estimated $40 million to produce. Women made up 78 percent of its opening audience, while moviegoers gave it the same C+ CinemaScore as Digger. The Colleen Hoover adaptation consequently finished first both domestically and worldwide for the weekend.
‘Digger’ Was a Different Kind of Tom Cruise Gamble
Digger moves Cruise far away from the straightforward action-hero persona that powered Top Gun: Maverick and the later Mission: Impossible movies.
The official Warner Bros. site describes Digger Rockwell as “the most powerful man in the world,” racing to convince humanity that he can save it from a disaster he unleashed himself. Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons join Cruise in the ensemble.
Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shot the film entirely in VistaVision. The production also recruited Oscar-winning prosthetic makeup designer Kazu Hiro as part of the team responsible for Cruise’s dramatic physical transformation into Rockwell.
Warner Bros. opened the movie across conventional theaters and IMAX on October 2 instead of beginning with the platform-release strategy used for several of Iñárritu’s earlier films. Boxoffice Pro reports that IMAX generated $2.1 million of the North American opening, or just over a quarter of the domestic total.