Tom Cruise’s polarizing awards-bait film Digger is on course for a $245 million theatrical loss after second-weekend ticket sales crashed 60 percent, a historic flop tied to Hollywood excess.
Domestic ticket sales for the Warner Bros. release fell hard in weekend two, leaving the film at $14.4 million in the United States and $35.3 million worldwide. Industry tracking now points to a global box-office total near $50 million and a staggering theatrical loss if those numbers hold.
Daily Mail reporting puts the projected hit at $245 million once the run is done. For a star long treated as critic-proof, the collapse is already being measured against the worst money-losers in modern studio history.
Digger opened to just $8 million in U.S. cinemas and $12 million more from 74 countries. That was far below early hopes.
The New York Post reported projections had slid from about $20 million to $15 million after scathing reviews landed, before the film actually opened at $8 million. The second-weekend 60 percent drop sealed the trajectory.
Variety’s math, cited in the coverage, is blunt. Because cinema owners keep roughly half of ticket sales, the movie needs about $350 million globally to break even. It is not close.
Warner Bros. greenlit the picture at $125 million. Production overruns pushed the estimated cost to $180 million. The studio then spent another $100 million on marketing and has been estimated to be preparing around $15 million more for an Oscar campaign.
Four-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu directed. Cruise plays oil magnate Digger Rockwell in a film framed from the start as a vehicle to deliver the star a first competitive Academy Award after an honorary Oscar last year.
Gold Derby experts still list Cruise fourth for a Best Actor nomination, with odds at 63 percent. The 2027 field is crowded with other contenders. Box-office reality is not helping the case.
Reviews were sharply split, and many of the harshest ones focused on the same problem: a costly, self-important film that talked down to the audience it needed.
Variety critic Owen Gleiberman put the charge in plain terms.
"I'm not sure that 'Digger' is going to connect, because it's so full of itself, so top-heavy with importance."
He added that the budget was “a testament to the arrogance of the filmmakers, to the assumption that we'll turn out in droves for this ponderous absurdist lecture.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney grouped it with other recent prestige blowouts.
"I was reminded of colossal misfires like Damien Chazelle's Babylon and David O. Russell's Amsterdam, bloated movies by directors so drunk on their exalted reputations they forgot there was an audience to consider."
New York Post critic Johnny Oleksinski found no payoff.
"There are no stakes to be found and no laughs to be had. There's certainly no point."
The Times’s Kevin Maher argued Cruise was both the draw and the problem.
"Cruise, instead, is in the unenviable position of being Digger's sole selling point and its fatal flaw."
Even some admirers conceded the excess. BBC’s Nicholas Barber said he loved it but that “most viewers will wish it was shorter” and grew tired of “close-ups of Goodman yelling while snake-sized veins bulge out of his forehead.” Daily Mail critic Brian Viner called it “bold and often brilliant film-making” after a second viewing, while still noting it could feel “baffling” and “self-indulgent” the first time.
Rather than rebuild goodwill, the campaign leaned into the divide. Movie social accounts shared an online ad that flashed critic lines from different countries, then cut to Cruise’s character and the line “You decide which!” Character-style replies included phrases such as “HIT 'EM WITH THE HARD TRUTH.”
One post that took aim at U.S. critics was later deleted. As of the following Monday it was gone from X, though reactions remained. Fan posts captured the message audiences heard: that Americans were “too dumb” for the movie and should prove Europeans wrong by buying tickets.
Coverage noted the film had not performed particularly well overseas either, undercutting the ad’s contrast. Warner Bros. also pushed a “decide for yourself” clip as reviews landed. Celebrity praise surfaced too, including a glowing Letterboxd note from Anne Hathaway. None of it reversed the sales slide.
If the $245 million theatrical loss materializes, Digger enters rare territory. Disney’s John Carter lost $161 million in 2012 and holds the Guinness mark for biggest flop as cited in the reporting. The Lone Ranger followed with a $160 million loss. 1995’s Cutthroat Island made $16 million against a $100 million budget, an inflation-adjusted loss around $105 million that helped bankrupt Carolco Pictures.
Cruise has had expensive misses before. Lions for Lambs, his 2007 political thriller, cost $35 million and was labeled a major flop. A decade later The Mummy lost $95 million. Neither matches the scale now attached to Digger.
Supporting turns from John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, and Jesse Plemons drew some critical notice. That did not translate into ticket sales. Runtime complaints and “pretentious frame story” objections kept recurring in the pans.
Hollywood greenlit a vanity lecture, spent like the audience was guaranteed, then blamed the public for not applauding. Moviegoers answered with empty seats, the only review that finally counts.
