{"id":646810,"date":"2026-10-06T20:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/646810\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T20:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:32:13","slug":"tom-cruise-defends-digger-after-box-office-flop-opening-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/646810\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise Defends Digger After Box Office Flop Opening Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Cruise<\/a> suffered one of his worst box office openings<\/a> in history with \u201cDigger<\/a>,\u201d Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s satirical black comedy that bombed with $8 million in North America on a production budget north of $160 million. But Cruise isn\u2019t one to judge a movie based on its first weekend in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I am making [movies], I\u2019m not going, \u2018Opening weekend!\u2019 I feel very much like we\u2019re going to make something that is a lasting piece of cinema,\u201d Cruise said in a now-viral interview on the \u201cOn Film With Kevin McCarthy\u201d podcast that was published the same day \u201cDigger\u201d opened in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tCruise and I\u00f1\u00e1rritu recalled Ridley Scott\u2019s \u201cBlade Runner\u201d as a movie that was a \u201cmasterpiece\u201d that \u201ceverybody killed\u201d when it opened in theaters. It later emerged as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey transcend\u2026 you just hope you can make a film that can last,\u201d Cruise said. \u201cSo many things happen when you open a movie. I was fortunate to release movies in the \u201980s and \u201990s, when movies would stay in the theater for a year. With \u2018Rain Man\u2019 and \u2018Born on the Fourth of July,\u2019 these movie would just play and play for a year. How can I make a film that can translate and last and evolve? And I feel that way\u2026. that is \u2018Digger,\u2019 it\u2019s one of those movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith its production budget between $160 million and $180 million, plus a $100 million marketing budget, \u201cDigger\u201d would need to gross $350 million in theaters worldwide just to break even at the box office. That figure will be impossible to hit after the movie\u2019s $20 million global start. The movie is now primed <\/a>to lose at least $150 million to $200 million theatrically.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDigger\u201d was widely touted as Cruise\u2019s first non-action movie role in nearly a decade. He stars in the movie as Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon who is faced with the end of the world after one of his rigs in Antartica malfunctions and sends ice caps hurtling towards Europe and more. Reviews for \u201cDigger\u201d were sharply divided<\/a>, with some hailing it as a masterpiece and others panning it as an insufferable misfire.<\/p>\n

\n\tCruise also took to his social media pages during the opening weekend for \u201cDigger\u201d to tell his fans that it was an honor to make the movie, adding: \u201cThank you to the entire cast and crew for your dedication, hard work and joy. The experience was truly unforgettable and I\u2019m so proud of what we created.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch Cruise\u2019s full interview on the \u201cOn Film\u2026\u201d podcast in the video below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise suffered one of his worst box office openings in history with \u201cDigger,\u201d Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s satirical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,176208,93,61,60,5592],"class_list":["post-646810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-digger","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tom-cruise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}