Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Stumbles Badly in Previews as Warner Bros. Braces for a Box Office Bomb
Tom Cruise has long been considered one of Hollywood’s most reliable box office draws. Across 45 years, his movies have earned $14 billion from 53 titles. That track record makes the early numbers for the Tom Cruise ‘Digger’ box office debut all the more surprising.
The R-rated satire, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, casts Cruise as an eccentric oil tycoon in a story about an ecological catastrophe. Its ambitious production, featuring VistaVision cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and elaborate makeup transforming Cruise into the balding Digger Rockwell, came with a hefty price tag.
Now, the first box office figures are in, and they’re not pretty. As reported by Deadline, ‘Digger’ earned just $1.2 million in Thursday previews, which began at 2 p.m. The outlet noted the film was soft everywhere.
Box office tracking account Global Box Office went even further after the preview results. It is now projecting an opening under $10 million domestically and under $20 million worldwide, calling the outcome a disaster for Warner Bros.
For comparison, Deadline pointed out that the preview total trails the $3.1 million earned by ‘One Battle After Another’, which went on to a $22 million opening. It does, however, edge out the $770,000 in previews for Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’, which opened to $4 million.
The financial stakes make the result even tougher to swallow. The film was greenlit at $125 million, but 4 knowledgeable sources told Variety the budget climbed to between $160 million and $180 million after production ran over schedule.
Tom Cruise’s DIGGER made only $1.2M in previews yesterday on a massive $180M budget. In fact, we’re now projecting the movie to open to less than $10M domestically and under $20M worldwide. It’s a disaster for WB! https://t.co/URGau5Xjta
— Global Box Office (@GlobalBoxOffice) October 2, 2026
The math looks brutal. Rival executives told Variety a movie of this size would need to debut near $40 million, and with roughly $100 million spent on marketing, the break-even point sits near $350 million worldwide, though Warner Bros. puts it at $300 million.
Warner Bros. had been projecting a $12 million to $15 million opening, hoping Cruise’s performance would build legs through awards season. Even that estimate now looks optimistic.
Several outlets are framing this as a historic low for the star. JoBlo predicts the film won’t make more than $11 million this weekend, which would make it Cruise’s weakest opening since ‘Lions for Lambs’ in 2007.
A new trailer for ‘DIGGER’ has been released.
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 9, 2026
In theaters October 2. pic.twitter.com/kTEeFZI14E
Showbiz411 noted that even Cruise’s other recent non-franchise films started stronger, with ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ earning $1.6 million in previews and ‘American Made’ pulling in $6.8 million on its opening day. Reviews haven’t helped either, with the film sitting around 52% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Meanwhile, the weekend’s other new release is surging. Colleen Hoover’s ‘Verity’ earned $4.5 million in previews and is on track for a $30 million to $35 million debut. Fans online noticed the gap, with some joking that Cruise risks his life on motorcycles off cliffs only to be outgrossed by a book adaptation.
The timing is especially awkward for Warner Bros. ‘Digger’ marks the studio’s final release as a standalone company, arriving the same night news leaked that film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy won’t be joining the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. company.
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