Tom Cruise's new film "Digger" flopped at the box office

The new film "Digger", starring Tom Cruise, has been released worldwide. According to distributor Warner Bros., the film earned about $8 million in its first weekend in US and Canadian cinemas, and collected another $12 million internationally.

For a film project with a production budget of approximately $125 million, such a start means significant financial losses. For Cruise himself, this is the worst box office opening since 2007, when the political drama "Lions for Lambs" was released.

"Digger" is a large-scale political satire directed by Mexican director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Belarusian film lovers know him primarily for acclaimed films such as the dramatic thriller "The Revenant" with Leonardo DiCaprio and the black comedy "Birdman," which earned the director "Oscar" awards.

In Iñárritu's new film, Tom Cruise changed his traditional role. Instead of performing dangerous stunts, the actor embodied several characters at once. His main character is an eccentric oil magnate who demonstratively and ironically pollutes the environment, which becomes a reason to mock the modern corporate world, environmental problems, and political populism.

For Cruise himself, this role was a serious risk. While at the beginning of his career he willingly worked with complex directors like Stanley Kubrick or Michael Mann, for the last decade and a half he has worked almost exclusively in commercially safe action films like "Mission: Impossible" and "Top Gun: Maverick."

Павялічыць

By agreeing to "Digger," the actor sought to support auteur cinema. Speaking to the Producers Guild of America, Cruise emphasized his hope that the film's box office success would help other unconventional directors continue to receive budgets for original ideas, and not just for sequels to known franchises.

However, critics' and early viewers' opinions about the film were sharply divided. According to CinemaScore, a company that studies audience reactions after premiere screenings, the film received a fairly low average score of C+. Warner Bros. even tried to build a marketing campaign around this polarity of opinions. For example, in one of the commercials, after quotes from harsh negative reviews, Cruise's character emotionally suggested ignoring the critics. Nevertheless, this step did not help attract the public to the cinemas.

What caused the failure of the film "Digger"?

As WSJ notes, the failure of "Digger" points to a broader problem in Hollywood, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract audiences to cinemas for original films. They find it extremely challenging to compete with sequels and projects based on already known franchises. One of the few exceptions remains the horror genre, where original stories are still capable of bringing significant commercial success.

For the past few years, Warner Bros. has been trying to go against this trend. Its film division deliberately allocated large budgets to acclaimed directors for original projects, counting not only on artistic resonance but also on good box office revenues.

However, this strategy yielded mixed results. The only undisputed hit was the horror film "Sinners" by director Ryan Coogler, which only confirmed the rule. Other auteur works met a more difficult fate. Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" received many "Oscars," including for Best Picture, but did not recoup its production costs at the box office, and Maggie Gyllenhaal's "The Bride!" proved to be a financial failure.

In this context, the failure of "Digger" became a symbolic end to an entire era. This is the last release that the legendary Warner Bros. released as a fully independent company, concluding its 103-year journey before the closing of its merger deal with media group Paramount and the creation of the new structure Skydance.

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