Digger’s 60% Box-Office Drop Puts $280m Film Under Pressure
Tom Cruise’s satirical black comedy Digger is projected to lose around $245m after ticket sales fell sharply in its second weekend. The film has taken about…
Digger’s steep second-weekend decline has put the high-cost film’s box-office prospects under pressure. The Tom Cruise black comedy is expected to lose around $245m, according to Hollywood analysts cited by the BBC, a result that could place it among the biggest film flops in Hollywood history.
The film’s ticket sales fell by around 60% in its second weekend in cinemas. Digger has taken around $35m worldwide so far, against an estimated $280m spent by Warner Bros to make and market it.
A sharp drop. The projected final total remains far below the figures cited as necessary to cover the film’s costs.
Hollywood trade publication Variety expects Digger to finish its box-office run with around $50m worldwide. It estimates the film would need around $350m to break even, taking into account its budget, marketing, cinemas’ share of ticket sales and a likely awards-season campaign.
A Warner Bros spokesman challenged that estimate, telling Variety the break-even point was $300m. The gap between the two figures reflects differing estimates of what the film needs to recoup, but either forecast stands far above its projected worldwide earnings.
Digger’s box-office performance
Cruise stars as oil magnate Digger Rockwell in the satirical black comedy, directed by Alejandro G Iñárritu. The film received generally poor reviews from critics, and Warner Bros launched a new marketing campaign urging audiences to “decide for yourself.”
That release has struggled to match the box-office success of recent major franchises starring Cruise, including new instalments of Top Gun and Mission: Impossible. The BBC reported that Digger could join films that lost more than $100m, including Cutthroat Island, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Sahara and John Carter.
The film also marks Warner Bros’ last standalone release before its recent takeover by Paramount, according to the BBC. Its financial performance therefore comes as the studio changes ownership, while a substantial difference remains between the film’s projected earnings and the break-even estimates.
Cruise defended his approach to making films last week, saying he had “never thought of movies when I'm making them [in terms of] opening weekend.” He said he focused instead on making films that “hopefully will translate, last and evolve”.
The box-office challenges were not limited to Digger. The Social Reckoning, a sequel to The Social Network, took $5.5m in the United States during its opening weekend and around $9m globally, according to the BBC. Its US opening was below the $22m its predecessor earned during its opening weekend in 2010; the BBC noted that figure was not adjusted for inflation.
The Social Reckoning tells the story of Facebook engineer Frances Haugan, who leaked internal documents to a reporter after becoming concerned about some of the company’s practices. The film was beaten in the US box-office chart by Other Mommy, Verity, Resident Evil and Heart of the Beast, the BBC reported.
For Digger, the latest estimates point to a worldwide finish of around $50m, while Warner Bros says the film’s break-even point is $300m.
Source: bbc.co.uk
