For the past twenty years, Tom Cruise has typically done very well at the box office, with 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick being a particular highlight. The movie star’s latest film, Digger, did not do nearly as well during its first weekend in theaters, marking the lowest opening weekend for a Cruise movie since 2007’s Lions for Lambs.
According to Deadline, Digger made just $8 million at the domestic box office this weekend, which is only slightly above the $6.7 million Lions for Lambs brought in nearly two decades ago. Digger was an expensive production, reportedly costing upwards of $160 million, and it clearly didn’t get the Tom Cruise box-office bump Warner Bros. was likely hoping for. Digger is only the fifth highest-grossing movie of the weekend, with the top spot going to the newly released Verity.
It’s not too surprising that Digger didn’t set the box office ablaze, as the Alejandro G. Iñárritu-directed flick is also proving quite divisive among critics and audiences. Without spoiling, Digger is a subversive movie with multiple big twists and no real pre-existing analogs. Cruise’s latest was never going to have the mass appeal of something like Top Gun: Maverick, and it may take a week or two of discourse before people really understand what it’s about and go to see it.
Even Polygon’s own review admits, “Digger probably won’t succeed by any of the financial or critical standards that capitalism has decided matter for a movie like this one, but that’s probably for the best when Iñárritu seems determined to reject all those things as vehemently as possible.” Digger shows that not every movie from a lauded director and lead actor can pull off what The Odyssey did in July. But when a movie is as original and quirky as Digger is, should we really expect it to?
What were the highest-grossing films of the weekend?
Since Digger wasn’t one of the weekend’s biggest successes, you’re probably wondering which movies grossed more than it. Per Deadline, these were the top ten highest-grossing films of the weekend:
- Verity – $32.6 million
- Resident Evil – $12.5 million
- Heart of the Beast – $11 million
- Primetime – $8 million
- Digger – $8 million
- Forgotten Island – $7.2 million
- Avengers: Endgame Encore – $4.4 million
- Drishyam — The Conclusion – $2.7 million
- Practical Magic 2 – $2.655 million
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day – $2.45 million