5 Reasons Why Tom Cruise's Digger Bombed At The Box Office
by Ryan Scott · /FilmAdd SlashFilm on Google:
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Tom Cruise just suffered what, by all early appearances, could be the biggest box office flop of his illustrious career. He's one of the biggest movie stars on the planet and has been since he headlined hits like "Top Gun" in the '80s. However, his new dramedy "Digger" failed to capture the attention of audiences and failed spectacularly on its opening weekend in theaters.
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu ("The Revenant") and released by Warner Bros., the movie centers on the most powerful man in the world as he embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything. "Digger" opened to just $8 million domestically, landing at number four on the charts behind A24's "Primetime" in its second frame. "Verity," the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, topped the charts with $32.6 million in its debut. Internationally, Cruise's latest made just $12 million overseas, giving it a $20 million global debut.
Against a blockbuster-sized budget, that's a rotten start. "Digger" was shaping up to be a box office disaster for Cruise heading into the weekend, but that was when it was tracking to earn closer to $20 million in North America. It barely hit that number worldwide. To say this is bad would be a bit of an understatement.
So, what went wrong here? How did the biggest movie star in the world wind up at the center of a disaster of this size? How did Warner Bros. make such a grave miscalculation? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why "Digger" flopped at the box office. Let's get into it.
The response to Digger was intensely divisive
When taking a big swing like Warner Bros. did with "Digger," it's crucial to deliver the goods. Movies like this need to be met with near-universal praise to even have a chance in today's climate, as frustrating as that may be from the artist's point of view. In this case, the movie that Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise delivered was far from universally praised. Quite the opposite.
As of this writing, the movie holds a 51% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes to go with a so-so 71% audience score. That's divisive if ever there was such a thing. It wouldn't be as big of an issue if this was a mid-budget, bold swing in the $50 to $70 million range. But we're talking about a blockbuster-level motion picture here that needs to make blockbuster money. It needed a better reception to get casual viewers off the couch.
/Film's Bill Bria said that Iñárritu's satire was "saved" by Cruise in his "Digger" review. Indeed, quite a few of the reviews have praised Cruise's performance, as he is very much going out on a limb, in full old man makeup in arguably his wackiest work since "Tropic Thunder." Even so, that wasn't enough, on its own, to motivate the average person to buy a ticket.
Cruise is unquestionably a huge movie star who has endured for decades, but even his power only extends so far. A big star alone isn't enough to sell tickets anymore.
The Digger marketing didn't clearly sell a must-see movie to audiences
To say that the landscape for original movies is difficult would be an understatement. For every success story like "Obsession," there are probably a dozen others that didn't work out as well. Things are improving for non-franchise fare, but franchises and IP are still king. So when a big-budget original movie like "Digger" is making its way out into the world, the marketing has to convey why it's a must-see event to have any shot at making it. Warner Bros. failed to do that in this case.
The "Digger" trailers had Tom Cruise trying to save the world again, but from what or how? That was unclear. The bigger sell seemed to be, "Hey look! Tom Cruise is unrecognizable in old man makeup in something that isn't an action movie!" That has appeal for certain viewers, but not the masses who only go to the movies a couple of times a year. Those people need something undeniable to make it worth their time.
Warner Bros. had to walk a tightrope with the marketing. The big twist in "Digger" gave Cruise a career first, but it was also something that the studio didn't want to spoil in the trailers. That can be limiting. Whether or not people would have shown up en masse even if the marketing materials could have put it all out on front street is another question entirely, but as it exists, the promotional efforts failed to effectively sell most people on why this was worth their time and money.
Competition didn't do Digger any favors
Not to say that "Digger" would have magically flourished if it had been completely unchallenged on its opening weekend, but competition certainly didn't do it any favors. The steamy thriller "Verity" topped the charts with a bigger-than-expected $32.6 million debut, opening to $62.6 million globally. Even though /Film's Nina Starner said that Anne Hathaway's Colleen Hoover movie is dead on arrival in her review, its intended audience turned out to see it.
That was far from the only thing standing in the way of Alejandro G. Iñárritu's divisive dramedy. Zach Cregger's "Resident Evil" held onto the number two spot in its third weekend as it approaches $250 million globally, with word of mouth holding strong. Brad Pitt's "Heart of the Beast" also held well, coming up on $100 million worldwide. "Avengers: Endgame" also passed "Avatar" to reclaim the highest-grossing movie of all time title thanks to the "Encore" re-release over the weekend.
Thanks to a buzzier, more audience-friendly new release and several strong holdovers, "Digger" had an even steeper hill to climb than it otherwise might have on a slower weekend. It certainly doesn't help that we're now in the heart of spooky season, with movies like "Other Mommy" and "Clayface" just around the corner to service the Halloween crowd. Those movies and others will make it even harder for Tom Cruise's latest to have any hope of finding legs in the ensuing weeks.
Audiences want to see Tom Cruise in action (and that's partially his fault)
For the better part of the last 15 years, Tom Cruise spent the bulk of his efforts focused on becoming the world's biggest action movie star. Thanks in large part to the success of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise and the record-breaking hit "Top Gun: Maverick," he achieved that. But that came at a cost. As Cruise clearly hopes to break away from his action hero persona with movies like "Digger," he's having to fight against what audiences now want from him.
The last time Cruise made a remotely non-action-y movie was the drug smuggling flick "American Made" in 2017, a minor hit at best that was still very much a popcorn movie. Before that? It was "Rock of Ages" in 2012. Even outside of the big franchises he's most associated with, Cruise made action-heavy blockbusters during this stretch like "Oblivion," "Edge of Tomorrow," and "Jack Reacher." (Cruise was also blamed for the failure of "The Mummy" at one point, but that's another conversation entirely.)
Largely, what Cruise has done very effectively is train audiences to see him as an action hero. Those movies tend to perform pretty well and, by and large, it was a good decision for his career. The problem now is that he's made it hard for general audiences to see him in another light. "Digger" was very much a different light, but that also, right or wrong, made it easier for certain viewers to just shrug it off, either because they didn't care or found it confusing.
We're going to get into this more in a second, but if Cruise really wants to change his career trajectory, doing so in a slightly smaller, mid-budget affair might have been the way to go.
Digger was disastrously expensive
More than anything else that hurt this movie, it was the oversized budget for "Digger" that proved to be its Achilles heel. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest cost an estimated $160 million, with some estimates claiming it was closer to $180 million. That's superhero movie money right there. It's an awful lot for Warner Bros. to risk on something with so little obvious commercial appeal. As a result, it's going to go down as one of the biggest bombs of the year.
2026's "Desert Warrior" is the biggest flop of all time, so "Digger" won't nab the prize for the biggest misfire of the year overall, but it's far more high-profile thanks to the Tom Cruise of it all. In some ways, that makes it worse. Sometimes, a studio like Warner Bros. will take a calculated risk with something like this. It made "One Battle After Another" last year on a similarly massive budget. That failed by a wide margin to profit theatrically, making $213 million worldwide, but ended up winning Best Picture at the Oscars. That award helped a lot with optics and bragging rights.
Given that Iñárritu has a history with generating Oscar-winners like "Birdman" and "The Revenant," pairing him with Cruise probably gave WB execs the impression that they were investing in a potential awards season darling. Unfortunately, in light of the heavily mixed reception, that now feels far less likely than it did even a few weeks ago. So there probably won't be a big batch of Oscars to ease the sting. Instead, it's just a very unwisely spent sum of money on a movie with dim long-term commercial prospects. It's a genuine swing and a miss.
"Digger" is in theaters now.