Tom Cruise’s attempt to win over awards voters with Digger is turning into one of the biggest misfires of his career. The satirical eco-comedy took $14.4 million in the United States over its second weekend and $35.3 million worldwide so far, and Warner Bros expects to lose $245 million on the film, according to Variety.
Directed by Alejandro Iñárritu, Digger casts Cruise as a grotesque elderly oil magnate who triggers a climate disaster and then sets out to save the planet. The black comedy was meant to mark a break from the large-scale action films that have defined the star’s last two decades. Including marketing, the production reportedly cost around $300 million, placing it among the studio’s heaviest failures.
According to AFP, Warner Bros invested heavily in promotion and had considered financing an Oscar campaign for Cruise, but that plan now looks uncertain. American critics gave the film a cool reception, with many arguing that it overreaches and loses the comic tone it aims for. Cinema audiences have also largely stayed away in the film’s first two weekends, raising doubts about Cruise’s standing as one of the last actors able to fill cinemas on the strength of his name alone.
The setback comes only a few years after Steven Spielberg credited Cruise with rescuing Hollywood after the pandemic through the success of Top Gun: Maverick. For most of the last 20 years the actor has focused on big-budget spectacle, often performing his own stunts in the Mission: Impossible series and playing a former military police investigator in Jack Reacher. Those films helped him rebuild his image after Paramount distanced itself from him in the mid-2000s, following his public comments about Scientology and his excitable television declaration of love for Katie Holmes.
Digger was supposed to show a different side of a 64-year-old performer who has never won an Oscar, despite acclaimed early roles in Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia. With box office takings falling short and reviews lukewarm, the film’s awards prospects now appear slim. For Warner Bros, the losses will add pressure at a studio that had backed the project as a prestige release, while for Cruise the question is whether a single flop will dent the reputation he rebuilt through two decades of action hits.
