Tom Cruise's 'Digger' Opens Friday to Split Critics and a Shaky Forecast. I Haven't Seen It, and I'm Glad Somebody Made It

Let me get the awkward part out of the way: I haven't seen Digger. Neither have you, unless you were at one of the early press screenings or the London premiere, and if you were, you already know this movie does something to people. The first reactions that hit the internet on Sept. 22 ran from "favorite film of '26" to "a mess," sometimes from people who had all just watched the same movie.

So this is not a review, and I'd be suspicious of any site that ran one this weekend. It's something else: a look at what we actually know about the most interesting gamble Hollywood is making this fall, some math I couldn't find in one place anywhere else, and my honest take on why the conversation around this movie got so strange so fast.

Here's the setup. For most of the last decade, Tom Cruise's job has been to hang off things and survive: the Mission: Impossible sequels, Top Gun: Maverick, the whole stunt-driven machine that made him the closest thing we have left to a guaranteed opening. Digger takes all of that away. Iñárritu, who won Oscars for directing Birdman and The Revenant, has buried Cruise under prosthetics as Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon whose drilling operation in Greenland sets off a catastrophe, and who spends the rest of the movie trying to get himself cast as the hero of it. No motorcycle. No helicopter. It's Cruise's first non-action starring role in nearly a decade, and he's 64.

When does Digger come out, and when do the reviews land?

The calendar matters more than usual here, because the gap between the first social media reactions and the first full reviews is exactly where the conversation about this movie is currently stuck. Here is the countdown:

1. Tue., Sept. 22 · DoneWorld premiere in London's Leicester Square, a Royal Film Performance attended by Prince William and Princess Catherine. Social reactions from early press screenings posted the same day, and tickets went on sale.
2. Tue., Sept. 29 · 12 p.m. ETThe review embargo lifts. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores start to form.
3. Wed., Sept. 30Digger opens internationally.
4. Fri., Oct. 2North American release, including IMAX and select VistaVision screenings. Amazon MGM's Verity opens the same day.
5. Sun., Oct. 4Studio estimates for the opening weekend usually arrive, the first real answer to every forecast in this article.

As of Sunday, Sept. 27, there is no Rotten Tomatoes score, no Metacritic score and no CinemaScore. Everything you've read about how "people are reacting" comes from a small group of critics and press who saw it early. That's worth remembering the next time a confident headline tells you the movie is a triumph or a disaster.

What is Digger about, and who's in it? (No spoilers)

Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an oil baron who is told that his company's drilling in Greenland has released a dangerous burst of methane and knocked an ice shelf loose from a glacier. That ice is now drifting toward Europe with the potential to trigger a tsunami. Digger, judging by the logline and the early write-ups, is not a man built for humility, so he sets out to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he caused finishes the job. The studio's own tagline calls it "a comedy of catastrophic proportions."

Around Cruise, the cast is stacked: Riz Ahmed plays a scientist named Ganesh who is trying to make Digger understand what he's done, Sandra Hüller plays his half-sister and business partner, John Goodman is the U.S. president, Michael Stuhlbarg is the vice president, and Jesse Plemons plays a mystery figure whose role reportedly comes into focus late. Sophie Wilde and Emma D'Arcy are also in the film. The script comes from Iñárritu with Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone, his Birdman co-writers, plus Sabina Berman. Emmanuel Lubezki, who shot Birdman and The Revenant, photographed it entirely on VistaVision, a large-format film process from the 1950s.

It runs a little over two hours and is rated R for pervasive language. Several early reactions mention a big reveal, and I'm going to leave it alone. I'd encourage you to do the same, because at least two of its loudest champions said the surprises land hardest for people who go in spoiler-free.

What are critics saying about Digger so far?

The word that keeps coming up is "divided," and for once that isn't a lazy summary. On the enthusiastic side, IndieWire's Anne Thompson called it a brave and gorgeous art film, one that would play best with the Academy, especially in the craft categories and the acting races. Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture praised Cruise's role as his most dynamic in years and described a movie that starts as broad satire and turns unexpectedly somber. Good Day Chicago's Jake Hamilton went furthest and named it his favorite film of the year.

On the other side, Edward Douglas said he couldn't call it very good, admitted he could see what Iñárritu and Cruise were going for, and predicted a terrible CinemaScore. Joey Magidson called it a mess while still singling out Cruise and Ahmed. /Film's Bill Bria described it as one of the most abrasive studio movies in a while. Even critics who liked it, like Polygon's Jacob Kleinman, seemed to feel that Cruise is not the most interesting actor on screen, which says something about how crowded the cast is. Gold Derby reported that Cruise's Best Actor odds slid after the reactions came in.

Here's my honest read on that pile of quotes. A split is not the same thing as a bad movie. Plenty of films people now love divided the room on day one. But there's a warning buried in it too: World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy pointed out that first reactions tend to skew positive, so a wave of mixed ones is a worse sign than it sounds. I've learned to trust unanimous first reactions less than divided ones, and I've also learned that "divisive" is what people say when they don't want to say "it doesn't work." Tuesday will tell us which of those this is.

How much will Digger make opening weekend? Every forecast side by side

The competition isn't helping. Amazon MGM's Verity, an R-rated Colleen Hoover thriller with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, opens the same day, and Boxoffice Pro had it at $30-40 million as of Sept. 11. Several outlets have already floated the idea that Verity wins the weekend. Verity's story, for the record, is about a man who hires a writer to finish his incapacitated wife's best-selling series. It's a very different kind of date night from an ice-shelf satire.

What makes the forecast genuinely strange is that the market itself is fine. Resident Evil crossed $103 million domestic in two weekends, and Avengers: Endgame Encore just took the top spot with $26 million; I wrote about both in my Resident Evil opening weekend breakdown and my rerelease rankings. People are buying tickets this month. They're just buying tickets to things they can describe in one sentence, and Digger takes a full paragraph.

How much does Digger need to make to break even?

Hollywood uses a rough rule of thumb that a movie needs to gross about 2.5 times its production budget worldwide to be considered a clear success. The multiplier exists because theaters keep a large share of every ticket and because marketing costs sit on top of the budget. It's a shortcut, not an accounting rule, and Warner Bros. and Legendary don't publish what they spent to sell this thing. But it's the yardstick most people use, so here it is against the three budget figures in circulation:

Now the part I actually wanted to work out. The comparison Warner Bros. is most likely hoping for is One Battle After Another, Warner Bros.' big swing from last September. According to Dark Horizons and SlashFilm, it opened to $22 million, went on to win Best Picture, and finished with about $213 million worldwide on a budget of at least $140 million, which SlashFilm still called a box office bomb. That's a multiplier of roughly 9.7 from opening weekend to worldwide total. So I asked: if Digger holds up exactly as well as that movie did, what does each opening weekend get it?

Read that last row twice. Even if Digger holds like a Best Picture winner, it would need to open above roughly $32 million to reach the standard success line, and the most optimistic public forecast tops out at $30 million. To be fair, the exercise has real limits. One Battle After Another had glowing reviews, which is exactly what Digger doesn't have going in. Studios also make money after theaters, from streaming, home entertainment and licensing, and plenty of movies are profitable at less than 2.5x. And SlashFilm noted that The Revenant, Iñárritu's last big English-language swing, made $533 million worldwide, so Warner Bros. knows what the upside looks like. I just think this table explains the anxiety better than any tracking headline does.

My call on opening weekend, and what would change my mind

Three things would move me:

• Tuesday's reviews. If the Rotten Tomatoes score opens in the 80s or higher, I'd raise my range, because the "critics hate it" story would die on the spot. If it opens in the 50s or lower, I'd lower it.
• Saturday's CinemaScore. That's the grade opening-night audiences give a movie. Edward Douglas predicted a terrible one. If regular moviegoers like it more than critics do, this is a very different second weekend.
• The second-weekend drop. One Battle After Another's story was never its opening: a $22 million start turned into $213 million worldwide. Digger needs some version of that, and quickly.

Should you see Digger opening weekend? A quick guide

• Go opening weekend if you loved Birdman or The Revenant, you like your satire mean and strange, and you want to see it the way it was made. Digger is playing in IMAX and other premium formats, and a few theaters, such as the Coolidge Corner Theatre outside Boston, are presenting it in VistaVision.
• Wait for reviews and word of mouth if you're a Cruise fan hoping for another Top Gun-style crowd-pleaser. Critics on both sides of this movie agree it's nothing like what you'd expect, and Tuesday is only a few days away.
• Think twice if you're planning a family outing. It's rated R, it's a bleak-comic apocalypse story, and one early reaction called it one of the most abrasive studio movies in a while.

Digger questions people keep searching

When is the Digger release date?

Digger opens in North American theaters on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary. International release begins Wednesday, Sept. 30.

When do Digger reviews come out?

The review embargo lifts Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 12 p.m. ET. Until then, the only public reactions are social media posts from early press screenings and the London premiere.

What is the Digger Rotten Tomatoes score?

There isn't one yet. The score can't form until reviews are published on Sept. 29, and it will keep moving in the first days as more critics post.

Is Digger rated R, and how long is it?

Yes. The MPA rated Digger R for pervasive language. It runs a little over two hours; listings show 2 hours 8 minutes to 2 hours 9 minutes.

Who is in the Digger cast?

Tom Cruise stars as Digger Rockwell, with Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons. Sophie Wilde, Emma D'Arcy, Robert John Burke and Burn Gorman also appear.

How much did Digger cost to make?

Warner Bros. has put the budget at about $125 million. Some outlets cite $130 million, and a handful of journalists have reported figures as high as $180 million. Marketing costs are separate and undisclosed.

Is Digger based on a true story or a book?

No. It's an original story, though the setup, an oil company's drilling triggering a glacier disaster, clearly echoes real climate anxieties. Critics have compared its tone to Dr. Strangelove and Don't Look Up.

Will Digger win opening weekend?

It's not the favorite. Verity, which opens the same day, was forecast higher by Boxoffice Pro, and several outlets expect it to win. My own call is that Digger lands in the mid-to-high teens.