Biggest flop of Tom Cruise's career as Digger earns just $12 million in 74 countries
Biggest flop of Tom Cruise's career as Digger earns just $12 million in 74 countries
Julianna Salinas Mon, October 5, 2026 at 5:47 PM UTC
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Tom Cruise stars in the new film Digger -Credit:Anadolu via Getty Images
Tom Cruise's new film Digger has officially been branded a critical and commercial flop after its abysmal box-office performance in its opening week.
Despite the 64-year-old movie star's aim for an Oscar nomination, his star power was not enough to save the film, which critics have slammed for its heavy-handed satire, bad jokes, and disappointing twist. Tom teamed up with Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the four-time Academy Award-winning director of Birdman and The Revenant, and underwent a painstaking physical transformation for his oil tycoon character.
Digger hit theaters on October 2 to a disappointing opening weekend after an unrecognizable Tom Cruise failed to win over critics with a mere 52% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Digger is a satirical black comedy about an oil tycoon named Digger Rockwell, played by Tom in heavy prosthetics, whose unmitigated drilling leads to a climate disaster. The film also stars Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüllller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jesse Plemons.
Tom, who has received three acting Oscar nominations throughout his career for Magnolia, Jerry Maguire, and Born on the Fourth of July, has only ever received an honorary Academy Award, and reportedly had ambitions for his first career win for his work in Digger.
Tom Cruise's latest film is a box office failure -Credit:Warner Bros.
The film grossed a measly $8 million in US theaters, with international numbers reaching $12 million across 74 countries. Its disappointing box-office showing makes it one of the biggest flops of Tom's 45-year career as a Hollywood star, after it failed to recoup its whopping $160 million budget on top of its $100 million marketing budget.
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On top of its catastrophic box-office failure, critics savaged the film for being too heavy-handed, losing the value of its satirical message, delivered through Tom's heavy prosthetics and wavering accent.
The intricate prosthetics designed by Oscar-winning prosthetic artist Kazu Hiro featured custom dental work, a hairpiece, and a padded bodysuit that initially took six hours to apply before the actor reportedly drilled the award-winning makeup team down to just one hour.
Other critics reported that the movie failed to deliver laughs and that many viewers were disappointed by the twist midway through the film.
Tom underwent a major physical transformation -Credit:Warner Bros. Pictures via AP
Warner Bros. faced criticism after deleting a promotional campaign that attempted to spin the film's poor critical reception by claiming that international audiences, like the French, would understand the film better than Americans.
The film currently holds a meager 51% audience score and a 71% critics' score on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with critics split about the movie's themes, messaging, and overall tone.
Digger marked one of the worst opening weekends in the actor's decades-long career. Tom's 2007 political thriller Lions for Lambs was also a major flop, but it only took $35 million to produce. A decade later, Tom's attempt to revive The Mummy franchise ended up costing $95 million.
By comparison, the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, Verity, starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson, took the top spot with $32.6 million in its opening weekend. Digger was even bested at the box office by Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, which was in its second week.
Digger is now playing in theaters.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
