Tom Cruise’s Climate Film 'Digger' Struggles at Box Office

2 min read

Tom Cruise’s climate-change film Digger is struggling at the box office, despite its massive production budget and the star power of its leading man. The Warner Bros. film opened with just $3.4 million in its opening weekend, including previews, from over 3,300 theaters across North America.

Some estimates suggest the film could finish its opening weekend with around $10 million domestically, a far cry from its $160 million production budget, which does not include marketing expenses.

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Digger stars Cruise as a grotesque billionaire oil tycoon whose actions unleash a global environmental catastrophe. After an accident at one of his drilling sites, a massive section of Greenland’s ice shelf breaks away and heads toward Europe, threatening catastrophic destruction.

Rockwell is subsequently brought into an emergency meeting with the U.S. president, played by John Goodman, as officials attempt to prevent the looming disaster. The film then reveals that the events are part of a stage production called Fossil Fools, depicting a climate catastrophe that occurred decades earlier within the movie’s fictional timeline.

Cruise is actually playing an actor named Curtis Markson, who is himself portraying Rockwell in the production. Audiences do not appear particularly impressed either. The film received a mediocre C+ CinemaScore, while reviews have been sharply divided.

Warner Bros. even resorted to an unusual marketing campaign highlighting the film’s terrible reviews and urging moviegoers to decide for themselves.

Tom Cruise’s “Digger” made $1.2M in previews, putting it on track to perform below projections with a $12M-$15M opening weekend.

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The box-office performance is particularly striking given Cruise’s status as among Hollywood’s most marketable movie stars. Top Gun: Maverick grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide in 2022, while its Mission: Impossible franchise has generated billions at the global box office. Yet even Cruise’s star power appears insufficient to persuade audiences to turn out for a sprawling climate-change satire.

Unless Digger enjoys a dramatic turnaround overseas and in the weeks ahead, Warner Bros. could be staring at one of the year’s most expensive box-office disasters.