The Digger disaster: what an epic movie flop means for Tom Cruise and Hollywood
Unprecedented folly of misjudgment, bad timing and spectacular hubris is predicted to lose $245m. How did this happen? The fanfare at Digger’s world premiere in London four weeks ago was literal. As the Prince and Princess of Wales took to the stage, their arrival was heralded by the Band of the Irish guards’ fanfare team – bugles gleaming, epaulets shining, bearskin bonnets rippling under the lights. Given the…
Key points
- Digger opened to $8m in the US and $12m internationally, with a predicted $245m loss.
- The film cost about $175m to produce plus $100m in marketing.
- Warner Bros chiefs Michael de Luca and Pam Abdy were axed after the flop.
Tom Cruise's new film Digger has become one of the costliest flops in Hollywood history. The world premiere in London four weeks ago was a star-studded event, but the film opened to appalling box office and almost universally horrified reviews.
Digger made $8m in its first US weekend before dropping 60%, and $12m across 74 international territories. It has earned $37.7m so far, with estimates suggesting a final haul of $50m.
Costs and predicted losses
Originally budgeted at $125m, production on the six-month shoot spiralled to about $175m. A further $100m was spent on marketing. Given that cinemas keep around half of ticket revenue, the film would need to make $350m to break even, though Warner Bros puts the figure closer to $300m.
Digger's predicted $245m loss places it among the most costly flops of all time, alongside Cutthroat Island, Mortal Engines and The Marvels. Cruise's first-dollar deal means initial takings go straight to him rather than the studio.
Digger is just the latest Hollywood supertanker art film to go down.
— Steven Gaydos, former executive editor of Variety
What went wrong
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu developed the idea in 2015, but it was initially ditched by Netflix because the streamer already had a pricey eco-dramedy with Leonardo DiCaprio, Adam McKay's Don't Look Up. Cruise, seeking to broaden his portfolio beyond action franchises, reached out to Iñárritu and they began work in 2022.
The marketing focused on Cruise's transformation and suppressed the film's nature as an ambitious liberal satire, in part to avoid revealing a major plot spoiler. After reviews were out, a new campaign quoted both negative and positive reviews before urging audiences to ignore critics, then pivoted again to tell punters to take note of critics because French reviewers liked it.
