Tom Cruise has spent nearly two decades making the box office look almost predictable, but “Digger” is testing that streak in an unfamiliar way. The satirical comedy, which casts Cruise as a heavyset, balding oil tycoon named Digger Rockwell, is tracking for an estimated $8 million opening weekend from 3,300 North American theaters. That would put it on course for Cruise’s lowest debut since Lions for Lambs opened to $6.7 million in 2007.
The result is particularly striking because Cruise’s recent theatrical record has been defined by enormous commercial wins. “Top Gun: Maverick” earned $1.49 billion worldwide in 2022, becoming the highest-grossing film of his career, while “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” crossed $700 million globally in 2025. “Digger,” by contrast, is asking audiences to see Cruise outside the high-speed action roles that have become synonymous with his star power, and its opening weekend suggests that gamble may come with a significant box office cost.
A $125 Million Gamble Opens Well Below Expectations
Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s ‘DIGGER,’ starring Tom Cruise, is tracking for a $6–9M opening weekend at the domestic box office.
It reportedly cost $160–180M to produce. pic.twitter.com/GYnIaxSihm
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) October 2, 2026
Warner Bros. had been projecting an opening in the $12 million to $15 million range, which was already a modest expectation for a film of this scale and pedigree. The actual result lands below even that conservative estimate. A C+ CinemaScore from audiences places “Digger” among the more divisive titles of Cruise’s career, equaling the grade “Lions for Lambs” received nearly two decades ago.
The studio is holding out hope that awards season momentum could give the film legs beyond its opening weekend, but with a 51 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a critical reception that The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic David Rooney described as “dead and buried,” that hope requires a significant reversal of the current trajectory.
Iñárritu Puts Cruise in Unfamiliar Territory
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and shot entirely in VistaVision across six months in the United Kingdom, “Digger” is Iñárritu’s first English-language film since “The Revenant” in 2015. The screenplay was co-written by Iñárritu with Sabina Berman and his “Birdman” collaborators Nicolas Giacobone and Alexander Dinelaris, placing the film firmly in the director’s more absurdist register rather than the survivalist realism of “The Revenant.” The ensemble cast includes Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Emma D’Arcy, and Sophie Wilde. Cruise also served as a producer on the project alongside Iñárritu and Mary Parent.
The film was described by Warner Bros. as “a comedy of catastrophic proportions,” and the tagline that accompanied the original poster read “A man. A plan. A meltdown.” That framing, combined with the striking visual of Cruise in extensive prosthetics and heavy makeup as Digger Rockwell, was always going to divide audiences before they saw a single scene.
The trailers generated significant online discussion in the weeks before release, with many viewers uncertain whether they were being asked to root for the character or laugh at him. That ambiguity, which is precisely the kind of tension Iñárritu has handled most effectively throughout his career, appears to have translated into a C+ CinemaScore, signaling audience confusion as much as displeasure.
A Difficult Weekend for Warner Bros.
Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Tries New Marketing Tactic: The French Love It, Americans Don’t https://t.co/mg3uAsTqJ4
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 4, 2026
“Digger” arrives at an exceptionally pointed moment for the studio releasing it. The Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to be finalized on October 6, making “Digger” one of the last films to open under the Warner Bros. banner as a standalone studio.
Film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have already been announced as departing, with Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein set to take over under the merged entity. De Luca and Abdy’s tenure included genuine commercial and critical successes; “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” were among the most acclaimed and profitable films of 2025, but 2026 has been a more difficult year for the studio’s releases, and “Digger’s” performance does not improve that picture.
The studio’s other wide release this weekend, “Verity,“ a thriller starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson, earned the same C+ CinemaScore from audiences and holds a 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. Two divisive films from the same studio on the same weekend, as the studio itself prepares to cease independent existence, is not the closing chapter Warner Bros. would have chosen to write for itself.
What Digger Could Mean for Cruise’s Next Act
The more significant question the “Digger” result raises is what it means for the next chapter of Cruise’s career. “Days of Thunder 2″ and “Top Gun 3″ are both reportedly in development, and the commercial logic of those projects is straightforward: audiences have repeatedly demonstrated that they will pay to watch Cruise do extraordinary things at speed.
“Digger” asked them to watch him do something quieter, stranger, and more uncomfortable, and they have largely declined. The film’s awards prospects now become its only remaining commercial pathway. If Academy voters respond to Cruise’s transformation as the studio hopes, the film could earn the kind of slow-burn theatrical run that Iñárritu’s “Birdman” managed in 2014.
Whether that happens will become clear over the next several weeks as the awards season conversation develops. What is already clear is that the artistic risk Cruise took with “Digger” was genuine, and that such risks in Hollywood carry real commercial consequences. The film is in theaters now.
Featured image: Warner Bros.
