On Monday, Tom Cruise graciously signed autographs and posed for photos outside The Directors Village for the Los Angeles premiere of “Digger,” sporting the confident smile that made him a screen legend.
Yet, long before Cruise hit the red carpet with Warner Bros. film chief Michael De Luca and Pamela Abedi, whom he praised for greenlighting “Digger” without turning a page of the script, it was clear the film was going to flop. It was too dark, too strange, too critical. Opening weekend estimates continued to be revised downwards, no matter what Cruise did to promote the satire – dance through Explaining Jennifer Hudson’s “Spirit Tunnel” VistaVision specifics Talking to the Kelsey brothers, or aging absolutely normal way With GQ.
But very few people had any idea that the film would flop so badly. Well, “Digger” is DOA, having grossed a disastrous $8 million this weekend. It debuted well below the weekend’s other new release, “Verity,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel that was panned by critics on its way to a $32.6 million opening, and also fell behind holdovers like “Resident Evil” and “Primetime.” International audiences, who usually come to watch Cruise films, are not buying tickets. “Digger” grossed $12 million from 74 markets, bringing its global gross to $20 million. The only hope is that “Digger” might re-emerge as an awards contender, an unlikely outcome, but one that would provide some cultural value.
As it stands “Digger”, which officially cost $125 million to make (sources put the actual price between $160 million to $180 million), it would need to be made at a dramatically closer $350 million to break even. Warner Bros., which backed the film with Legendary, has Breakeven point at $300 million. That means “Digger” is losing $150 million or more, according to two executives with knowledge of its finances. For context, theaters keep half of ticket sales and Warner Bros. spent millions marketing “Digger.” A Warner Bros. spokesman declined to comment.
There is not much to go around. If not, “Digger” will become one of the greatest movies of all time the biggest Cruise has had a few flops in his career – for example, “The Mummy”, $95 million lost And killed Universal’s Dark Universe ambitions in their cradle. Another disappointment was the slower start than the most recent Cruise film “Digger,” the 2007 political thriller “Lions for Lambs,” although it only cost $35 million to make. “Digger” is already a historical bomb, right up there with the likes of “John Carter,” “Cutthroat Island,” and “The Lone Ranger.”
As far as De Luca and Abdi are concerned, they are still in the Warner team, but they will not be there for long. The studio’s new owner, David Ellison, told him on Friday that he would not remain in his role when Skydance takes control and merges the company with Paramount. And the film’s massive loss would justify the pivot that felt inevitable as soon as news broke that Ellison was making a drama for Warner Bros. — less “Diggers,” more “Days of Thunder 2.”
Sadly, the mogul may have been right from a financial perspective. De Luca and Abdi were among the friendliest of studio heads, giving Paul Thomas Anderson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ryan Coogler, and Alejandro González Iñárritu the kind of budget they would have struggled to achieve elsewhere.
Sometimes his gamble was successful. Few would question the wisdom of the “Sinners” deal with Coogler returning the film’s copyrights, Although in the beginning they did. After all, “Sinners” was a huge hit. Recently, De Luca and Abdi’s ambitious moves have failed to turn a profit. Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” and Iñárritu’s “Digger” were among the biggest money-losing films of the decade, while Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” an oscar winning article. When “One Battle After Another” made a splash at the Academy Awards, a Paramount executive reminded me of their different mandates. The executive scoffed, “We don’t lose $100 million to win Best Picture.”
This could be good news for Skydance shareholders, who are naturally concerned about how Ellison is going to operate the two entertainment giants. Paying off $80 billion debtBut this will not be very good for cinema lovers. Love it or hate it, “Digger” is a bold swing. Iñárritu’s dark look at corporate greed and climate change conflicts with many of the bigger ideas, and Cruise gives the kind of broken-down performance he’s largely given up on playing an action hero. It may take some time for moviegoers to see him in this form again.
As for Cruise, he may have admired De Luca and Abdi’s chutzpah, but he’s also very familiar with Ellison, who made “Top Gun: Maverick” and several “Mission: Impossible” movies with Skydance. He has already given his blessings to the merger, Telling Pat McAfee Bringing together Warner Bros. and Paramount would lead to “abundance”.
Cruise told McAfee, “They’re going to deliver 30 movies. This is a community to me. This is not an industry. The people in these studios are not just studio people, they’re my family.” “I know we’re going to have to get those 30 movies. I want us all to come together as a community to help make those 30 movies. Making that happen won’t just be paramount. It’s going to take the help of everyone, every artist, to be able to do it.”
according to A report in TheWrapWhen Abdi and De Luca get a call from Alison that they are out to the family, they get a heated response.
“Good luck to you,” Abdi said to Alison with some bitterness. “I left you 39 movies.”
But is it a slate filled with more “sinners” than “diggers”?