Tom Cruise’s new film Digger flops at the box office amid divisive critical reception

Things have gone from bad to worse for Tom Cruise's awards hopeful Digger – with the film flopping at the box office following a decidedly mixed reception from critics.

The film – which is written and directed by two-time Oscar-winner Alejandro G Iñárritu – made just $20 million at the global box office in its opening weekend, including just $8 million in the US.

With the film having had a budget of $160 million, plus marketing costs, it now looks like it's going to make a huge loss for Warner Brothers, with some reports indicating it could lose as much as $150 million overall.

It also marks Cruise's lowest box office opening for 19 years, and if things don't improve significantly seems likely to go down as one of the biggest box office bombs in Hollywood history.

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That commercial failure coupled with the aforementioned critical reception also means its planned awards campaign seems all but over before it's even begun.

Cruise had been gunning for his first competitive Oscar, but now seems incredibly unlikely to overtake current best actors frontrunners such as John Malkovich for Wild Horse Nine, Andrew Scott for Elsinore and Matt Damon for The Odyssey.

Currently, the film sits on 51 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 277 reviews, while its score on Metacritic is 46 at time of writing.

Among the publications to award negative reviews were The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Empire Magazine, Rolling Stone, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire and Roger Ebert.com.

However, our own Radio Times review was one of the more positive verdicts – awarding the film 4 stars and arguing that although it "will annoy as many people as it delights" it was a "fascinating" thought experiment.

The official synopsis for Digger reads: "The most powerful man in the world races to prove he is humanity's saviour before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything."

However, the marketing of the film deliberately held back certain twists within the movie – even if rumours that it would be a musical turned out to be wide of the mark.

In addition to Cruise, the starry ensemble cast for the film also includes key roles for Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons and Emma D'Arcy, among others.

Digger is now showing in UK cinemas.

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Authors

Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.