Tom Cruise’s climate-change propaganda film Digger is bombing at the box office, despite featuring one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and carrying a gargantuan production budget.
The Warner Bros. film pulled in just $3.4 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, from more than 3,300 theaters across North America.
Some estimates suggest Digger could finish its opening weekend with around $10 million domestically.
This is against a monster $160 million production budget, which does not include marketing expenses.
Tom Cruise’s “Digger” made $1.2M in previews, putting it on track to perform below projections with a $12M-$15M opening weekend.
The film carries a $125M budget (though it reportedly grew to over $160M after production went over schedule). https://t.co/fgrXl2ZvKz pic.twitter.com/wKtobqbeCF
— Variety (@Variety) October 2, 2026
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Digger stars Cruise as a grotesque billionaire oil tycoon whose actions unleash a global environmental catastrophe.
After an accident at one of his drilling sites, a massive section of Greenland’s ice shelf breaks away and heads toward Europe, threatening catastrophic destruction.
Rockwell is subsequently brought into an emergency meeting with the U.S. president, played by John Goodman, as officials attempt to prevent the looming disaster.
The film then reveals that the events are part of a stage production called Fossil Fools, depicting a climate catastrophe that occurred decades earlier within the movie’s fictional timeline.
Cruise is actually playing an actor named Curtis Markson, who is himself portraying Rockwell in the production.
Audiences do not appear particularly impressed either.
The film received a mediocre C+ CinemaScore, while reviews have been sharply divided.
Warner Bros. even resorted to an unusual marketing campaign highlighting the film’s terrible reviews and urging moviegoers to decide for themselves.
You decide. https://t.co/c3jA93X8tg pic.twitter.com/iEm58ueEPb
— Digger (@diggerthemovie) October 3, 2026
The box-office performance is particularly striking given Cruise’s status as among Hollywood’s most marketable movie stars.
Top Gun: Maverick grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide in 2022, while its Mission: Impossible franchise has generated billions at the global box office.
Yet even Cruise’s star power appears insufficient to persuade audiences to turn out for a sprawling climate-change satire.
Unless Digger enjoys a dramatic turnaround overseas and in the weeks ahead, Warner Bros. could be staring at one of the year’s most expensive box-office disasters.
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