Tom Cruise's Digger is now on course to be the 'biggest box

Digger is now on course to be the biggest box office flop of all time, with its second weekend ticket sales dropping by a huge 60 per cent.

During its opening weekend, Tom Cruise and director Alejandro G Iñárritu’s critically panned satire grossed just $8million in US cinemas, with international sales of $12million from 74 countries.

Ticket sales for the movie declined by 60 per cent in its second weekend, bringing its tally to $14.4million domestically and $35.3million globally.

Industry insiders report that the movie is now tracking to lose a huge $245million in its theatrical run, with its estimated global box office total to be just $50million.

Variety reports that the movie needs $350million globally to break even because cinema owners get to keep about half of ticket sales.

Warner Bros. greenlit the film for $125million, but the budget soared to an estimated $180million after production went over schedule. The studio then spent another $100million on marketing, which has seen leading man Cruise in megadrive mode fronting months of teasers and social media campaigns.

Digger is now on course to be the biggest box office flop of all time, with its second weekend ticket sales dropping by a huge 60%

If the estimates pan out and Digger does lose $245million, it would put the film among the biggest box office bombs of all time.

With $161million in losses, Disney’s 2012 flop John Carter holds the Guinness World Record for the biggest flop in history.

A year later Disney suffered another $160million loss with The Lone Ranger.

Rewinding to 1995, director Renny Harlin’s failure Cutthroat Island earns its place in the history books after it made just $16million upon its release, against an estimated $100million budget.

Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to a $105million loss. The movie also bankrupted its production studio, Carolco Pictures.

In terms of Cruise’s box office history, the actor’s 2007 political thriller Lions for Lambs was another major flop but cost only $35million to make. Ten years later Cruise’s attempt at revitalising The Mummy franchise was also a huge misfire, losing $95million.

There’s also the matter of Digger’s studio award spend. The movie had been considered a vehicle to land Cruise his first competitive Academy Award, with insiders estimating Warner Bros. will have stumped up around $15million for an Oscar campaign.

Digger is one of the few awards-focused movies that Cruise has starred in for almost three decades and is directed by four-time Oscar winner Alejandro, who is known for his work on Birdman and The Revenant.

Ticket sales for Tom Cruise’s movie declined by 60 per cent in its second weekend, bringing its tally to $14.4 million domestically and $35.3 million globally

Warner Bros. greenlit the film for $125million, but the budget soared to $180million after production went over schedule. The studio then spent another $100million on marketing

Some Hollywood insiders suggest that the movie star could still be on course for his first Oscar, despite the biggest box office flop of his career.

The actor did receive an honorary Oscar last year celebrating his four decades in Hollywood.

Awards site Gold Derby experts currently have Cruise in fourth for a Best Actor nomination (with odds at 63 per cent) but caution the 2027 category is a hotly contested race with Andrew Scott (Elsinore), John Malkovich (Wild Horse Nine) and Matt Damon (The Odyssey) all thought to be shoo-ins for a nod.

As the first box office numbers trickled in, Warner Bros. tested out a new marketing strategy for Digger.

The social media accounts for the movie are leaning into the divisive reaction, reposting any positive fan review it can find and adding thunderous replies in the style of Cruise’s oil tycoon character such as ‘HIT ‘EM WITH THE HARD TRUTH.’

But one post which took direct aim at US critics and their scathing reviews has been deleted by the studio.

Last month, as the critical reviews rolled in, an online ad was shared on X which showed Cruise as Digger Rockwell saying, ‘America has stood beside the world in its darkest of hours,’ to which Riz Ahmed’s character shoots back, ‘Not anymore’.

The ad then flashed up a succession of critic quotes alongside a flag representing the critic’s country.

The first from a Mexican YouTuber who called the film ‘Epic, Extraordinary and Biting’, was followed by a quote from US site Playlist which called the film ‘Grotesque, Deliberately Tacky’.

There was also a line from a French critic who declared the film ‘a Gem of Intelligence’, followed by The New York Post calling it ‘An Unintentionally Bad Movie’.

The ad concluded with Cruise’s character declaring, ‘You decide which!’

As of Monday the ad was no longer available on X. Reactions to the post remain on the site though with one fan deciding: ‘a film’s marketing calling out how dumb Americans are is such a beast mode move man, I might have to watch it now!’

‘They’re saying Americans are too dumb for DIGGER. Prove the Europeans wrong and go to the movies. It’s your patriotic duty,’ added another.

‘Holy s*** they’re straight up calling out americans for being the only people who didn’t like the movie,’ said one more.

It’s an interesting strategy for the movie, which contrary to the ad has not performed particularly well overseas.

Digger: What the critics think

The Daily Mail, Brian Viner

Rating:

Rating: Four stars

‘I’ve already seen Digger twice, and enjoyed it much more the second time, knowing the twists from the start.

‘First time round, I felt it got tangled in its own conceit and artifice, becoming not just baffling but self-indulgent.

‘Nonetheless, this is bold and often brilliant film-making, with deserved whispers of Oscar nominations for Inarritu, Cruise and Goodman, and fabulous supporting performances from Ahmed, Sandra Huller and Jesse Plemons, not to mention an animatronic cat.’

BBC, Nicholas Barber

Rating:

Rating: Four stars

‘Personally, I loved it. Some of its excesses are, well, a bit too excessive, and most viewers will wish it was shorter.

‘After about 90 minutes, you get tired of close-ups of Goodman yelling while snake-sized veins bulge out of his forehead.

‘But when Cruise is clambering all over the set, delivering thunderous lectures on the oil industry, I couldn’t help grinning at the gargantuan scale of his performance, the conviction of the script’s grim environmental message, and Iñárritu’s antic style.’

The Telegraph, Robbie Collin

Rating:

Rating: Four stars

‘Digger itself exists in that perpetually uncertain state, and I’m not sure whether the debate it’s having with itself about art’s impotence in the face of catastrophe is one it can, or even wants to, resolve.

‘But what a thrill to watch Iñárritu and Cruise hash it out with so much beauty, daring and extravagance.’

The Los Angeles Times, Amy Nicholson

‘Tom Cruise has dangled from cliffs, skyscrapers and planes, but oil magnate Digger Rockwell is his riskiest role in eons.’

Collider

‘Without special effects or stunts, the veteran star [Tom Cruise] holds your attention throughout, grandstanding in a way that feels like an Oscar moment both in its intention and its impact.’

The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw

Rating:

Rating: Two stars

‘As with Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, there may be a tacit consensus, understandable at some level, that at least we have a big mainstream movie which is talking about the biggest issue of our time, and we have a duty to suspend critical objection.

‘Digger certainly resonates with Donald Trump’s greedy urge to despoil the Arctic and everywhere else. Yet there is something glib and overblown here. This film finds itself in a postmodern hole. And what do you do when you’re in a hole?’

The Times, Kevin Maher

Rating:

Rating: One star

‘There surely exists an alternate movie universe where Digger is played by an actual ”older” actor, say Dustin Hoffman or Ben Kingsley, and in that universe that film is certainly more effective than this one.

‘Cruise, instead, is in the unenviable position of being Digger’s sole selling point and its fatal flaw.’

Empire, Olly Richards

Rating:

Rating: Two stars

‘Digger is a bumptious blowhard… Cruise emerges with a win, reminding us how riveting he can be as an actor, not just as a movie star.

‘A role so oversized and absurd demands fearless commitment, which he certainly gives. The big swing is laudable. If only the film were more rewarding.’

Variety, Owen Gleiberman

‘I’m not sure that ‘Digger’ is going to connect, because it’s so full of itself — so top-heavy with importance.

‘The movie cost north of $125 million to make, and that figure is not only too big to probably justify itself; it’s a testament to the arrogance of the filmmakers – to the assumption that we’ll turn out in droves for this ponderous absurdist lecture.’

The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney

‘I was reminded of colossal misfires like Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, bloated movies by directors so drunk on their exalted reputations they forgot there was an audience to consider.’

The Boston Globe

Digger is a ‘turgid, unfunny, and borderline unwatchable 128 minute mess’.

Den Of Geek

‘[Digger] forgets the statement must still work as anything more than a self-flagellating valediction from a movie star.’

The Wrap, William Bibianni

‘Digger is what happens when you give the week’s worst Saturday Night Live sketch an inexplicably large budget and delusions of grandeur.’

The New York Post, Johnny Oleksinski

‘The trouble with Iñárritu’s pretentious frame story (sorry to be so vague) is that it causes us to not take about 90% of the movie seriously and to zone out for long stretches.

‘There are no stakes to be found and no laughs to be had. There’s certainly no point.’

The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey

Rating:

Rating: Two stars

‘As much as Digger has been sold on the promise that Cruise here is a revelation, there’s no real inversion to speak of, merely a return to the kind of work he did (over two decades ago!) before his blockbuster action streak.

‘Even his latex makeover seems reminiscent of his paunchy, balding Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.’

Indiewire, David Ehrlic

‘The reason why Digger is a nobler and more rewarding failure than Birdman or Bardo is because it doesn’t have to pretend that Digger Rockwell is a real person.

‘He’s a living cartoon who’s exempted from the human foundation that was missing from those earlier films, and — for all of this movie’s psych-outs and detours — that allows Iñárritu to address his existential crises with a greater directness and degree of relatability.’