Opening weekend box office results

Alejandro G. Iñárritu's satirical dark comedy Digger opened to $8 million across North American theaters and $12 million across 74 international territories, achieving a global debut of $20 million. The domestic opening ranks as the lowest for star Tom Cruise in 19 years, since Lions for Lambs debuted with $6.7 million in 2007. The release fell far short of third-party tracking from earlier weeks, which had projected a domestic debut near $30 million. Digger finished tied for fourth place in North America, trailing Amazon MGM's Verity, which led the box office with $32.6 million, along with Resident Evil at $12.5 million and Heart of the Beast at $11 million.

Industry analysts project total financial losses between $150 million and $200 million against a global break-even target calculated by Variety at $350 million. Production expenses originally budgeted at $125 million escalated to between $160 million and $180 million during prolonged shooting, while Warner Bros. spent an additional $100 million on marketing.

Creative direction and industry reaction

The production marked a departure from Cruise's established action franchises, featuring the actor under a bald cap and prosthetics as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell. The narrative depicts a billionaire navigating a self-inflicted climate catastrophe before revealing that the story is a tech rehearsal for a theatrical play titled Fossil Fools. The ensemble cast includes John Goodman as the US president, Sandra Hüller as Digger's sister, and Riz Ahmed. Industry analyst David A. Gross noted that Cruise's presence fundamentally altered the commercial scale and expectations for a dark comedy.

For a dark comedy, the numbers are not bad, but comedies of this type are small-scale films, and this is not a small film - it's a Tom Cruise film.

Critical reaction was polarized, with assessments ranging from praise in The Guardian to sharp dismissals in The Wall Street Journal. Fellow Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón publicly defended Iñárritu, with del Toro calling social media boycott advice petty and Cuarón circulating historical pans of established classics. In response to mounting negative notices during the final week before release, Warner Bros. distributed promotional teasers carrying the slogan 'decide for yourself.'

Studio transition and executive reshuffle

The box office outcome coincided with the final days of Warner Bros. as an independent studio ahead of its $110 billion merger with Paramount-Skydance, finalized on 6 October 2026. David Ellison established the combined entity under the Skydance name, omitting the names of both legacy studios from the parent corporate title. Ellison declined to renew the contracts of Warner Bros. film division chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, despite the studio generating $4.3 billion in global revenue and 11 Academy Awards in 2025.

Under the new corporate structure, Ellison serves as chairman and CEO with former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz acting as co-CEO. Casey Bloys takes charge of the unified streaming operations including HBO, Paramount+, and Pluto, while George Cheeks oversees television networks. Film studio co-heads Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg face a contractual commitment to produce 32 feature films annually within two years.