Digger, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, has become a box-office disaster, potentially ranking among the worst-performing films in cinema history. According to industry insiders, the film—which had a production budget of $180 million—could ultimately result in a theatrical loss of as much as $245 million.
In its opening weekend, Digger grossed only $8 million in North America, with a global total of approximately $20 million. At the time, Warner Bros. had projected a theatrical loss in the range of $150 million to $200 million. However, the film’s North American box office plummeted by another 60% in its second weekend; it has currently earned only $14.4 million domestically, with a global total of just $35.3 million.
Industry analysts estimate that Digger may finish with a total global box office of only around $50 million. Yet, to break even, the film would require at least $350 million in global ticket sales, given that theater exhibitors typically retain about half of the box office revenue.
When compared to the global performance of Tom Cruise’s previous films, the results for Digger appear even more dire. According to box office data as of October 5, Cruise’s top-grossing film is Top Gun: Maverick (2022), which raked in $1.5326 billion worldwide. It is followed by Mission: Impossible – Fallout ($824.71 million), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation ($710.91 million), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ($694.71 million), and War of the Worlds ($606.68 million). Next in line are Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) with $598.76 million, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023) with $571.12 million, Mission: Impossible 2 with $549.58 million, the original Mission: Impossible (1996) with $457.69 million, and The Last Samurai with $456.81 million.
In other words, if The Prospector—the film in question—ultimately reaches a global box office of only around $50 million, it would not only fall far short of Tom Cruise’s top 10 highest-grossing films, but would also amount to just about 3.3% of the global box office haul of Top Gun: Maverick. Given Cruise’s track record of consistently generating hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, this failure stands out starkly.
Starring Tom Cruise, The Prospector is an environmental satire infused with dark humor, centering on a wealthy oil tycoon whose business operations trigger a potential environmental disaster. The film was a high-risk project from the start; its subject matter is unconventional, and it represents a rare breed in today’s market: a large-scale, original (non-franchise) motion picture.
Warner Bros. initially approved a production budget of approximately $125 million, but due to production delays, costs ballooned to between $160 million and $180 million. An additional $100 million was spent on global marketing—a figure that does not even account for potential expenditures on an Oscar campaign.