Only four years ago, Tom Cruise was celebrated as the man who had drawn audiences back to the cinemas thanks to the success of Top Gun: Maverick, which grossed almost 1.5 billion dollars.
Today, however, the actor finds himself facing one of the most challenging moments of his career. His latest film, Digger, directed by Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is turning out to be a box-office disaster, with losses estimated around 245 million dollars.
How much did Tom Cruise’s new film lose?
World premiere in London, with the presence of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Digger seemed to have all the ingredients to become one of this year’s cinematic events. A beloved leading man, a director with two consecutive Oscars, and a cast that includes Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Jesse Plemons.
Yet the reception in theaters was markedly different from that given to the film during its premiere.
Released in early October, Digger grossed a mere 8 million dollars in its first weekend in the United States, to which 12 million were added from international markets. The numbers were well below expectations, and deteriorated further during the second weekend, when U.S. earnings fell by 60%.
According to estimates reported by the Guardian, the film could finish its theatrical run with around 50 million dollars in box office.
The problem is that producing it cost far more. The initial budget was about 125 million dollars, but during production it climbed to 175 million. To these must be added another 100 million earmarked for promotion.
To recoup the investment, therefore, Digger would have needed to gross somewhere between 300 and 350 million dollars, also considering that a portion of ticket receipts stays with exhibitors.
The anticipated losses, around 245 million dollars, would place it among the biggest commercial failures in the history of cinema.
Why did it flop?
But what went wrong?
On paper, the collaboration between Tom Cruise and Iñárritu seemed promising.
After years spent on chases, impossible missions, and spectacular stunts, Cruise had decided to tackle a role that’s entirely different. In Digger he plays a quirky oil billionaire whose Arctic drilling activities unleash an environmental catastrophe.
A grotesque, satirical tone, far from the action-packed blockbusters with which the actor has trained audiences in recent years.
This very choice may have contributed to the film’s difficulties. The promotional campaign reportedly failed to clearly convey the nature of the project, leaving many viewers unprepared for a work that is decidedly unusual.
Reviews also carried weight. The critique tended to be largely negative, challenging especially the satirical tone and some narrative choices. The audience responses were not particularly encouraging for a production of this scale.
To complicate matters, there would also have been financial management issues surrounding the project. According to TheWrap, part of the cost overruns was tied to delays in Cruise‘s availability, still tied up with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and to problems related to the prosthetic makeup used for the character.
What does this flop mean for Tom Cruise and Hollywood?
For Tom Cruise, Digger marks a result that is particularly difficult to ignore. In recent years the actor had built a large portion of his commercial success around spectacular productions.
With this film, however, he experimented with a different path, returning to collaborate with an auteur director, as he had done in the past with Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Michael Mann.
But the commercial failure of the movie threatens to have consequences that go beyond his career.
In recent years, Warner Bros. had invested in original creations entrusted to prestigious directors, even when those projects carried especially high budgets. A strategy that had yielded notable results with films like Sinners and One Battle After Another, but which with Digger exposed all of its risks.
The flop arrives at a delicate moment for the studio, grappling with significant corporate and leadership changes. According to some American outlets, the film was entirely financed by Warner Bros., which would thus bear the financial consequences of the failure directly.
It remains to be seen whether a result of this magnitude will push Hollywood to be even more cautious about original high-budget productions, particularly when they do not belong to an already established franchise.
As for Tom Cruise, a single flop is unlikely to derail a career that has spanned more than four decades. Yet Digger proves that even a star of his caliber cannot guarantee a film’s success.
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