Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ faces $245 million loss

The Tom Cruise eco-satire 'Digger', a movie supposed to herald the action hero's return to serious acting, has bombed at the box office, with industry insiders predicting losses approaching a quarter of a billion dollars.
The Alejandro Inarritu comedy, featuring Cruise as an eccentric oil baron who must fix a problem he helped create, was panned by critics and has left audiences cold.
It leaves Warner Bros. with a major financial hole as a merger with Paramount Skydance closes.
After two weeks in cinemas, the film has grossed just $14.4 million in North America and $35.3 million globally, pointing to cumulative losses of around $245 million.
'Financially it has to be considered a disaster', Christopher Rosen of Hollywood trade publication The Ankler said.
'It cost anywhere from $160 million to $180 million, that's even before marketing, and it's made relatively nothing at the box office'.
Marketing for a movie like 'Digger' can cost up to $100 million.
Daniel Loria of Boxoffice Pro noted that the film was greenlit under outgoing Warner Bros. executives Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, known for giving filmmakers substantial budgets to create original movies.
'Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't', he said.
As an art-house film satirising American culture through the eyes of a non-American filmmaker, 'Digger' was perhaps always a difficult proposition.
'This movie was never going to get a general audience to get behind it, right?' Loria also said.
'The film takes every opportunity to push the audience in uncomfortable directions', Loria said.
'American audiences don't have the easiest time accepting films that criticize American culture, especially when they're made by foreigners'.
Cruise's presence, following his role in reviving cinema attendance after the pandemic with 'Top Gun: Maverick', ensured intense attention.
'You've got arguably the biggest movie star in the world (who) was literally everywhere for this movie', said Paul Dergarabedian, a market analyst at Rentrak.
'He was so excited about this movie and working with Alejandro Inarritu'.
'By virtue of Tom Cruise's star power, there was a spotlight on this movie. Anything he does is going to be under a microscope'.
That fame makes comparisons less flattering: 'Digger' was never going to match the multibillion-dollar 'Mission: Impossible' franchise.
But its earnings align with the kind of films Inarritu makes, Loria said. His movies 'aren't really too worried about their box office total; they're worried about having an artistic endeavor behind' them.
That makes 'Digger' something of a mismatch.
'Unfortunately, I think this was marketed as a general audience movie, when at heart, this is an art-house film'. — AFP