Tom Cruise’s first non-Mission: Impossible film since 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick is not converting his star power into opening-weekend ticket sales. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Digger opened theatrically on 2 October and has collected roughly $10 million worldwide, with the US portion at $3.4 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
That performance makes it one of the lowest-grossing opening weekends of Cruise’s career. Reports cited by Cinema Express describe it as his weakest US start since 2007’s Lions for Lambs.
Mixed response, loud support
Early international previews and premieres had already split critics and audiences before opening day. On Saturday, Cruise wrote on X that Digger was in theatres and added: “I’m so proud of what we created.”
The support is not coming only from the film’s own team. Guillermo del Toro called the film “daring, bold and cinematically complex,” and argued that a chorus of negativity around a new release is not new, pointing to The Big Lebowski, The King of Comedy and The Counselor. Glen Powell, Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick co-star, described Digger as a “visionary spectacle” and “pure cinematic joy.”
Why this matters for media planners
The opening is a reminder that a marquee name buys awareness more reliably than it buys opening-weekend urgency. An auteur-driven, original drama is a very different product from a franchise sequel, and that difference has to show up in demand modelling.
- US opening: $3.4 million, per Box Office Mojo
- Worldwide opening: approximately $10 million
- Benchmark: weakest US start for Cruise since Lions for Lambs in 2007
- Advocates: Guillermo del Toro and Glen Powell have publicly defended the film
The 2 October release aligned with the Gandhi Jayanti holiday in India, but the early US number was still muted. That suggests international performance, not just domestic, will decide whether Digger reaches a commercially respectable final number. Media buyers with theatrical exposure should avoid benchmarking this title against Cruise’s franchise work; the comparison set is almost meaningless.
The mixed pre-release response also creates a communicable problem: advertising can remind audiences that a Cruise film is in theatres, while negative headlines may make casual filmgoers wait for streaming. That is the kind of sentiment trend planners should track against pre-sales data before shifting spend into a second-week push.
For entertainment marketers, the next data point to watch is the second-weekend hold. If the endorsements translate into word of mouth, a softer decline could give the film a longer tail in premium formats. If the decline is steep, Digger becomes another case study in the limits of star-led, director-driven theatrical bets.
Source: Cinema Express
