Tom Cruise and Iñárritu's 'Digger' Divides Critics Despite $125M Budget and Box-Office Collapse

Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest English-language feature, Digger, has emerged as a stark commercial and critical divide: while the film earned considerable buzz before release—fueled by its trailer featuring an unrecognizable Tom Cruise and strong echoes of Doctor Strangelove—it quickly became one of the season's most prominent financial disasters, taking in only $20 million globally during its opening weekend against a $125 million (or potentially higher) production budget.

The Box-Office Reckoning#

The film's financial underperformance stands in sharp contrast to the director's impressive credentials. Iñárritu's track record includes four Academy Awards and several acclaimed features, making Digger appear to be fertile awards-season material on paper. The project was initially developed at Netflix with Leonardo DiCaprio attached before the streaming giant pivoted to making Don't Look Up instead. When the concept later caught the attention of Cruise—a longtime admirer of Iñárritu—the star signed on and the production moved forward.

Polarized Reception#

Critical and audience responses have fractured sharply along philosophical lines. Some viewers embrace what they perceive as the director's audacious creative choices, while others have found the film nearly unwatchable. Rather than functioning as traditional satire or dark comedy about climate change, the work operates more in the register of absurdist theater, deliberately unsettling spectators with escalating excess.

For supporters, including some prominent filmmakers, the payoff arrives in the third act—a surprisingly moving sequence where Iñárritu's thematic intentions crystallize. Yet this approach virtually guarantees alienation among a substantial portion of viewers who resist the film's deliberate strategy of maintaining narrative and tonal instability. According to reports, Iñárritu conceived of the core character shortly after completing The Revenant, describing a figure with a distinct worldview: "I knew who this character was," he explained to Variety, "I knew how he spoke, how he survived, how he seduced reality into agreeing with him."