Tom Cruise put aside his action hero persona and fell flat on his face at the box office. The big-budget political satire “Digger,” in which the “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun” leading man plays multiple roles including a gleefully polluting oil tycoon, opened to an estimated $8 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to distributor Warner Bros. That’s the lowest opening for a film starring Cruise since the political drama “Lions for Lambs” in 2007, not adjusting for inflation. It’s also one of the biggest bombs for any studio this year. Overseas, “Digger” grossed only $12 million. The failure of the film—-which cost about $125 million to make, according to the studio—is the latest evidence of how hard it is to get people to go to theaters for original films outside of the horror genre.
“Even with respectable ancillary income based on the film’s pedigree, the movie is going to lose a lot of money,” said film industry analyst David A. Gross in his box office newsletter Franchise Re. A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. declined to comment. Spokespeople for Cruise didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“Digger” is the final movie released by Warner Bros. before Paramount’s deal to acquire its parent company closes Tuesday. While Warner will be a division of the new company, which will be called Skydance, “Digger” marks the end of its 103-year run as a stand-alone studio. For the past four years, Warner’s motion picture division has pursued an unusual strategy of making costly bets on original ideas from critically acclaimed filmmakers like “Digger” director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who won Academy Awards for “The Revenant” and “Birdman.”
The architects of the studio’s strategy, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, aren’t staying with the company once its sale to Paramount closes, The Wall Street Journal has reported. After a screening for Producers Guild of America members last week, Cruise described “Digger” as important for the future of original, auteur-driven moviemaking in Hollywood.
Source: Wall Street Journal US Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing