Tom Cruise’s Digger projected to open around $8 million in North America
Tom Cruise stars as an overweight and balding oil tycoon in director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s satirical film Digger, which grossed $3.3 million on Friday including Thursday previews and is projected to open around $8 million in North American theaters, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Warner Bros. project carries a $125 million production budget.
The studio projected an opening between $12 million and $15 million from 3,300 North American theaters, but box office tracking places the actual debut closer to $8 million.
Forest Fires and Politics Overlap with Digger Production
Filming for Digger began in January 2025 during a tense environment in Los Angeles. Actor Riz Ahmed recounted that a raging forest fire threatened large swaths of the city just as cameras were about to roll on a scene inside a swanky private jet where his scientist character confronts Cruise’s oilman over an ecological disaster. Crew members watched the fire move in real time through satellite imagery while contemplating potential property loss.
Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu noted that reality began overtaking the fictional narrative during production as Donald Trump returned to office and Elon Musk implemented government workforce cuts. The film originally carried the working title Blah, Blah, Blah, which Iñárritu described as a reference to the human tongue as a terrifying weapon capable of altering reality. Cruise spent hours in makeup to achieve his physical transformation into the oil mogul, challenging the team to reduce the application time from six hours to one.
The film’s satirical narrative eventually reveals that the oligarchs on screen are actors performing a play, a framing device designed to comment on climate collapse and the powerful few running the planet into the ground. Bilge Ebiri wrote that the movie is played at such full-tilt pomposity that it’s hard not to wince, while it was observed that Cruise can never play a normal person again, a person who an audience can conceive of existing in the real world. Iñárritu remarked that Cruise stopped a rehearsal to give him a round of applause for attempting such a massive creative risk.
Verity Leads Domestic Box Office over Competing Releases
Amazon MGM Studios’ Verity outperformed competing new releases by collecting $15.1 million on Friday including previews, heading toward a No. 1 domestic finish with an estimated $33.6 million across 3,510 locations, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Other holdovers maintained steady grosses during the same frame. Sony’s Resident Evil reboot directed by Zach Cregger added $12 million in its third frame to reach a domestic total of approximately $124.3 million. Paramount’s Heart of the Beast starring Brad Pitt pulled in roughly $11 million for a cume near $38 million, while A24’s Primetime starring Robert Pattinson as journalist Chris Hansen headed toward $8 million and a $34 million total. Lionsgate rounded out the newcomers with Beware Boiúna, a giant snake horror film directed by Mike P. Nelson that grossed about $500,000 from 1,121 theaters.
Studio Leadership Transition
Digger arrives as the final release for Warner Bros. as a stand-alone studio ahead of the anticipated Oct. 6 finalization of Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion merger. Studio film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are exiting their posts, with Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein scheduled to take over.
Each actor gives a layered performance and they shift between emotions with something as little as a stare or body language.
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