Tom Cruise’s new film “Digger,” an R-rated environmental satire directed by two-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, earned just $1.2 million in Thursday night previews, a weak start for a project that reportedly cost Warner Bros. roughly $250 million in combined production and marketing spending.
The film is opening on about 3,300 North American screens, and industry tracker Variety had projected an opening weekend in the range of $12 million to $15 million. Based on the Thursday numbers, that target now looks difficult to reach.
Other wide-release films that posted similar Thursday preview numbers have gone on to underperform at the box office, though none of those films starred an actor with Cruise’s box-office track record.
Cruise has not had a wide-release film he starred in open below $12 million since 1992’s “Far and Away.” His previous worst Thursday preview performance came with 2017’s “American Made,” which opened with $6.2 million that weekend, finished with a $52 million domestic total, and grossed $135 million worldwide.
Comparisons have also been drawn to Darren Aronofsky’s 2017 film “Mother!,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, which opened on nearly 2,400 screens with $7.53 million in its debut weekend and went on to gross $44 million worldwide. That film was made for roughly one-sixth of “Digger’s” reported budget.
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