Tom Cruise has spent decades outrunning explosions. In Digger, he plays a man who causes one. The film opened October 2 to a weak box office and sharply divided critics.
The Premise
Alejandro G. Iñárritu directs Cruise as Digger Rockwell, a Texas oil tycoon. His Greenland drilling fractures the ice shelf. That releases an iceberg five times the size of Washington, D.C., plus deadly methane, per Vulture. The cast includes Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons. The film was shot entirely in VistaVision and is playing in IMAX.
The Box Office Numbers
Warner Bros. opened Digger in more than 3,000 locations. The R-rated film grossed an estimated $8 million for the weekend. Early projections were $12–15 million from 3,321 theaters. After a $3.4 million first day, estimates were cut to $8 million.
The budget is the bigger problem. Variety says the film cost north of $125 million to make. The New York Times calls it a major flop and notes it is Warner Bros.' last release before its merger. Audiences gave it a CinemaScore of "C+". Only 47% of PostTrak respondents said they would definitely recommend it.
What Critics Are Saying
Reviews are split almost evenly. Rotten Tomatoes shows 51% positive across 247 reviews, and Metacritic sits at 45/100.
The pans are harsh:
- The New York Times calls it "such a lumbering white elephant of a movie that it almost makes you sorry for everyone involved".
- Variety says it wants to be "the 'Dr. Strangelove' of climate change" but delivers overacting and a didactic disaster instead of laughs.
- Roger Ebert's site says it "chokes on its own ambitions".
The praise is just as strong:
- One Metacritic-listed critic calls it "a bold statement made even bolder by the person starring in it" and says satirizing powerful men this viciously may be the biggest risk of Cruise's career.
- Another says: "don't listen to anyone who tells you it isn't funny".
- The LA Times calls it a "bizarre stunt made on a big studio budget," a Kubrick–Brecht hybrid. It adds that no actor but Cruise could have got a movie this messy a $125 million budget.
Our Take
Digger is rare: an original, expensive, R-rated satire from a major studio. That is exactly the kind of swing audiences say they want. The numbers suggest they didn't buy tickets.
Cruise's brand is reliability. He delivers spectacle, stunts, and a sure-thing night out. Here he plays an inflated, cartoonish billionaire in a film that offers discomfort and no reassurance. Rotten Tomatoes' audience Popcornmeter sits at 71%, so viewers who connect with it may like it more than the CinemaScore suggests. Even so, a "love-it-or-hate-it folly," as one critic put it, rarely earns a $125 million return.
The film's fate may matter beyond its own run. A major flop can make studios more cautious about original, auteur-driven projects. Or Digger may find a second life as a cult favorite, as other divisive satires have.
Should You See It?
- Go if you like dark, absurdist comedy, big-screen formats and bold, messy filmmaking.
- Skip if you want a crowd-pleaser or a Cruise action romp.
- Runtime: about 2 hours and 9 minutes.
Whichever side you land on, Digger will get people talking, and it's a rare mainstream film that takes this big a risk.
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