‘Digger’ Could Become Tom Cruise’s Lowest-Grossing Movie in 40 Years

Tom Cruise and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first collaboration Digger is out this weekend and it’s headed to a dire box office opening and reviews might mean more than just a dire opening.

Tom Cruise is perhaps the most successful star Hollywood has ever produced, he has had super hit movies for over four decades now which makes it even more baffling that it might be the end of a crazy run Tom Cruise has had.

Now I do want to preface this by saying this is by no means a given and this movie could very well perform much better than the numbers are saying but generally box office predictions aren’t too off the mark. Digger seems to be headed to a $10M-$12M box office opening domestic unless Tom Cruise walkups really kick in late game. It’s hard to say how this movie is doing internationally but it’s hard to imagine it’s doing much better.

As of right now Digger has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 52% and a Metacritic score of 44 which is not good to say the least. This will in likelihood limit the legs of this movie. This movie needs to open high to even have a chance of not being a massive flop but those who were on the fence might see these reviews and decide to pass on the film.

Here are the contenders that Digger has to beat to not end as the lowest grossing Tom Cruise film in a long long time.

The Legend (1986)

Directed by Ridley Scott, this is the movie that Digger is almost surely going to beat as Legend only grossed $23.5M.

Magnolia (1999)

Magnolia’s first and only movie with Paul Thomas Anderson was not the biggest hit as it only grossed $48.4M. If Digger‘s box office goes worse than expected, this will be a neck and neck race to see if Digger can beat this or not. If Digger is rejected by moviegoers like say The Bride was earlier this year, this will be where this movie stops. Even if it beats this movie, Digger would still be the lowest grossing Tom Cruise movie in 27 years.

The Color of Money (1986)

This Martin Scorsese directed film, a sequel to The Hustler grossed $52.2M which was a sizable hit for the budget it had at the time.

Rock of Ages (2012)

While Tom Cruise is not a lead in this film or really a major major player, it’d still count at $59.4M.

Lions for Lambs (2007)

At $64.8M this was Cruise’s only film of the 2000s to gross under $195M. Granted, this again is not a film that Cruise was the lead in but he has a bigger role here than he did in Rock of Ages.

To put into perspective how crazy Tom Cruise’s run is, the 5 films above are the only films after 1983 that grossed under $100M. Cruise has made 42 movies in that span. This is a 88% chance of picking a random movie of his that made over $100M at the box office. I want to clarify that this is without inflation.

This is pure box office gross going back to the 1980s where for reference with inflation Color of Money would gross $158.53M at the box office. To add to that, Tom Cruise was only billed as the lead in one of these movies, The Legend. So to put it into perspective, every Tom Cruise led film has grossed over $100M after 1986. He has led about 37 films since that mark for reference.

Considering everything and especially budget no matter what, Digger is almost surely going to be the biggest flop of Tom Cruises career. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything for Cruise’s star power as we’ve seen his dominance barely a few years ago with Top Gun: Maverick but perhaps it might make Cruise reconsider what roles and movies he wants to do next.

Thanks for reading this article about Digger Box Office. For more articles like this, stay tuned here at Feature First.