Tom Cruise’s Digger is off to a rocky start at the box office, collecting $1.2 million domestically from Thursday previews ahead of its wide release this weekend across more than 3,300 North American locations. Warner Bros. is projecting an opening in the range of $12 million to $15 million for the satire, which carries a $125 million production budget, though some reports suggest the final production cost climbed as high as $160 million to $180 million after the shoot ran over schedule.
Digger marks a departure from the action-heavy franchise work Cruise has become known for in recent years. The film centres on his character, an audacious oil tycoon who finds himself grappling with the fallout after accidentally triggering a natural disaster. It is instead being compared with the more filmmaker-driven projects from earlier in Cruise’s career, such as Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia, placing the actor in a noticeably different lane after a long stretch dominated by the Mission: Impossible and Top Gun franchises.
Alongside Tom Cruise, Digger stars Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Sandra Hüller. The film recently held its world premiere in London, where Cruise, Hüller, Ahmed and Emma D’Arcy walked the red carpet together ahead of the release.
Reviews for the film have been mixed. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney wrote that the film “ultimately just prompts a worn-down shrug.” Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has publicly defended Cruise and the film, pushing back against what he called a “petty” headline circulating about its early struggles.
The film is directed by two-time Academy Award winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, known for Birdman and The Revenant, both of which won him consecutive Best Director Oscars. Digger marks his first major English-language studio release in several years and reunites him with the kind of bold, awards-season-minded filmmaking that has defined much of his career.
With roughly $100 million reportedly spent on marketing on top of its production costs, industry estimates place the film’s break-even point somewhere between $300 million and $350 million worldwide, a steep climb from its soft preview start.
Digger’s theatrical debut arrives amid a turbulent moment for Warner Bros. News broke around the same time that the studio’s motion picture chiefs, Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, are not expected to continue with the company. The shake-up comes ahead of Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros., adding another layer of uncertainty to the studio’s film division just as one of its biggest bets of the year hits theatres.
Digger also follows a difficult year for Warner Bros. at the box office, with other 2026 releases including The Bride!, Supergirl and Practical Magic 2 all struggling to turn a profit.
While Digger struggles, Amazon MGM’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Verity, starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, is expected to take the top spot at the box office this weekend with $4.5 million in previews. That figure trails the $7 million previews of 2024’s It Ends With Us, which went on to open at $50 million domestically, but comes in ahead of the $1.9 million previews for this year’s earlier Hoover adaptation, Reminders of Him, which opened to $17.9 million.
Digger’s opening well below its budget and Warner Bros. navigating a major leadership transition at the same time, the film’s theatrical run will be closely watched in the days ahead as actual opening weekend numbers come in against the studio’s $12 million to $15 million projection.