Tom Cruise’s Digger Is Heading for His Worst Box Office Opening Since 2007

Tom Cruise’s Digger is heading for a rough first weekend. Saturday estimates put its North American opening at about $7.5 million, which would be his weakest domestic debut since Lions for Lambs in 2007 if the projection holds.

These are October 3 forecasts, not the completed weekend total. The reported comparison is with Lions for Lambs’ $6.7 million opening, rather than Cruise’s worldwide ticket sales or the lifetime earnings of either movie.

How bad is the opening projection?

Digger reportedly earned $3.4 million on Friday from 3,321 theaters, including IMAX locations. Its reported production cost is at least $125 million. Marketing is separate, and an opening-weekend gross is not a studio’s final profit or loss.

Even with those limits, this is a difficult starting point for an expensive theatrical release. The immediate question is whether enough people who skipped opening night will show up later. A big cast and premium screens provide opportunities to sell tickets, but neither makes those tickets sell automatically.

This is not another Mission: Impossible

Alejandro G. Iñárritu directs Cruise as Digger Rockwell, a powerful man trying to convince the world he can save it from a disaster he helped cause. The film is an original story, not a sequel built around one of Cruise’s established action characters.

Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons also star. Iñárritu wrote the screenplay with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, from a story credited to Berman, Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth.

That premise asks audiences to watch Cruise as the source of the trouble rather than the dependable hero who fixes it. It is a different sales pitch from another Ethan Hunt mission, and the early estimate shows that familiar star power has not produced a familiar opening.

The final weekend number is still to come

Warner Bros. released Digger in North America on October 2, following an international rollout beginning September 30. It was shot in VistaVision, with Emmanuel Lubezki serving as cinematographer.

For a closer look at the film itself, read our Digger review. The review and the box-office result answer different questions: whether the movie works, and how many people are buying tickets.

International earnings and later weekends will add to the financial picture. The first domestic estimate is already poor enough to raise questions about the size of the investment, without pretending Saturday has settled the movie’s entire run.