Digger, the black comedy starring Tom Cruise and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, has opened to weak returns, taking $8 million in the United States and $20 million worldwide over its first weekend. Early indicators suggest the Warner Bros. release is on course to lose between $150 million and $200 million.
Cruise plays a powerful oil tycoon who sets off an environmental disaster in the film, which had been positioned as an awards-season contender that might finally take the actor to the Oscars. Its production budget reached as much as $180 million, and trade reports put marketing spending at a further $100 million, which means the film needs around $300 million to break even.
The project was always a gamble: a big-budget original comedy built around a star rather than a franchise. Its late twist has divided audiences, and Euronews Culture’s review called it the director’s “most pretentious film to date”. Iñárritu, whose earlier films include Birdman, The Revenant and Bardo, has long been a polarising filmmaker, though the pairing with one of cinema’s most reliable box office draws had raised expectations.
The result deepens a difficult year for Warner Bros., which has struggled throughout 2026 to take more than $100 million at the domestic box office with any of its releases. The Bride and Supergirl both produced large losses. The timing is also awkward, as Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is set to close next week, following approval from a US district court last Wednesday.
The studio’s main hope of rescuing the year now rests on December, when Dune: Part Three arrives in cinemas with a projected global opening of around $200 million to $230 million. For Digger, Euronews has already compared the scale of the likely losses with those of John Carter, which became a byword for an expensive Hollywood misfire.
