Alejandro G. Iñárritu's R-rated dark comedy landed behind Resident Evil in its opening weekend, with trackers now projecting a domestic haul far short of initial estimates.
Tom Cruise has had rough openings before. This one might be the roughest in a long while.
Digger, the R-rated dark comedy directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, pulled in $3.4 million on its first day in North American theatres, according to Box Office Mojo. That figure includes $1.2 million from Thursday night previews, leaving the Friday number itself fairly thin for a film carrying Cruise's name above the title.
The film has been running in theatres since September 25, and this past weekend was shaping up as the one that tells Warner Bros whether Digger has legs. Early signs aren't good. The studio was reportedly bracing for something closer to $15 million across the three-day opening weekend. That number has since been revised down hard, with trade estimates now putting the domestic total somewhere between $7 million and $10 million.
If that holds, it would be Cruise's weakest opening weekend in around two decades, a stretch of his career that includes some of the biggest franchise runs in Hollywood.
Buried behind Resident Evil
Digger landed at No. 3 in the weekend rankings, sitting below Zack Cregger's Resident Evil, which is already into its third week in theatres and still outperforming the new release. That's not a great look for a film built around one of the industry's most reliable box-office names.
The opening-day number does clear one low bar. It's slightly ahead of The Bride, another Warner Bros release this year that struggled badly at $3 million on its first day. But set against Cruise's own filmography, the picture looks worse. Napoleon opened to $7.7 million on its first day, Vanilla Sky to $8.9 million, and Civil War to $10.8 million. Digger trails all three by a wide margin.
This lands at an awkward moment for Cruise. Both Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning underperformed against expectations at the box office, and a dark comedy from an arthouse-leaning director like Iñárritu was always going to be a harder sell to the mass audience that usually shows up for him. Industry trackers had flagged the soft opening days in advance. Digger is managing to undercut even that pessimism.
Warner Bros hasn't issued an official comment on the numbers beyond what's reflected in the box office tracking itself. Whether Digger can hold any sort of audience through word of mouth, or whether it fades fast the way The Bride did earlier this year, will become clearer once the full three-day weekend numbers are finalised and the studio has to decide how wide a release the film keeps going forward.
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