Tom Cruise’s new climate-themed film Digger is opening to weak reviews and a projected $8, 12 million weekend, a path that could cost Warner Bros. more than $100 million.
Hollywood’s biggest movie star is about to open wide across America in a 129-minute picture that critics say spends long stretches lecturing audiences about oil and climate change. Breitbart reported that Warner Bros. put $160 million to $180 million into the production before promotion, and that marketing could push the total near the $250 million range.
Professional estimates put the opening at $8 million to $12 million. One tracking note cited in that coverage pointed closer to $10 million. At those levels, the studio faces a loss of more than $100 million if the film cannot climb toward a break-even point framed around $500 million worldwide.
The Rotten Tomatoes score sat at 52 percent as the wide release approached. That is not the kind of critical tailwind a star vehicle needs when the budget already looks heavy.
Director Alejandro Iñárritu’s film drew sharp pushback for speech-heavy scenes. Critic Christian Toto warned that the movie leans on endless lectures about climate change and oil.
Toto wrote:
"Endless speeches, most involving the horrors of Climate Change and how dern evil oil is. Cruise’s Digger gets an extended close-up where he rants, raves and reveals the truth about oil and culture,"
Another line Toto flagged from the film’s messaging ran:
"We need it. We crave it. We’ll risk everything to burn it. So this is all our fault."
Toto’s verdict on the whole package was blunt. He called Digger bloated, dull, obvious, lacking in self-awareness, and exhausting, and asked whether anyone would want to spend two hours with grown men screaming at the top of their lungs.
A RogerEbert.com review quoted in the same roundup was no kinder on craft or purpose. The critic said the movie is devoid of substance and questioned why viewers should sit through what plays like a bad, unfunny stage piece if that was the point of the exercise.
The review continued that the craft feels knowingly hollow and that the longer Iñárritu takes to reach the bottom of the film, the bigger the hole becomes. The critic argued the director strays so far from the initial points that it is hard to tell what the “bottomless egotistical film” was meant to be, say, or feel.
Cruise remains one of the last true global draw cards, with decades of franchise muscle behind him. That star power usually buys patience from studios. Here the bet was still enormous: nine figures in production costs, more for promotion, and a story critics describe as an anti-oil, climate-first lecture rather than a crowd-pleasing thriller.
Message films can work when audiences show up. They collapse when the opening weekend stalls in the low double-digit millions and word of mouth matches a mid-50s Tomatometer. Wide release across America only multiplies the risk once screens are booked and ad dollars are spent.
Studio ledgers do not grade on ideology. They grade on tickets. A projected $8 million to $12 million start against a total outlay that may approach a quarter-billion dollars before a single overseas territory is counted is the kind of math that ends with a write-down, not a victory lap.
None of the tracking or early reviews force anyone to stay home. Moviegoers can still reward Cruise if they want a 129-minute night out. The early record simply shows critics calling the politics loud and the drama thin, while the opening range sits far below what a budget this size requires.
Warner Bros. financed a star-driven climate sermon and is rolling it out nationwide. The first test arrives at the ticket counter, not in a press release.
Hollywood keeps greenlighting lectures dressed up as entertainment, then acts surprised when ordinary ticket buyers refuse to pay for the sermon.
