Warner Bros. has turned to an unconventional publicity tactic for Digger after Tom Cruise’s latest film suffered a disappointing opening at the box office.
The satirical movie, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and made for at least $125 million, earned only $8 million in US theaters during its debut weekend. That marks Cruise’s weakest opening for a starring vehicle in 19 years.
The studio is also understood to have spent another $100 million on promotion, with Cruise appearing in months of trailers, interviews and television appearances. Now, the campaign has taken a more confrontational turn.
The official Digger social media accounts have begun embracing the film’s sharply divided reception. On X, the movie’s account has been highlighting favorable audience reactions and responding in the booming voice of Cruise’s oil tycoon character with lines such as, “HIT ’EM WITH THE HARD TRUTH.”
However, one promotional post that directly challenged American critics and their largely negative reviews has since been removed by Warner Bros.
The advertisement, circulated on X last week as reviews began appearing, featured Cruise’s character, Digger Rockwell, declaring, “America has stood beside the world in its darkest of hours.” Riz Ahmed’s character then replied: “Not anymore.”
Warner Bros. has adopted a provocative new promotional approach for Digger following the Tom Cruise film’s disappointing opening weekend
The spot then displayed a series of critic reactions, each shown alongside the flag of the reviewer’s country.
A Mexican YouTuber praised the film as “Epic, Extraordinary and Biting,” before the US publication Playlist offered a far less flattering description: “Grotesque, Deliberately Tacky.”
A French reviewer described the movie as “a Gem of Intelligence,” while The New York Post labeled it “An Unintentionally Bad Movie.”
The commercial ended with Rockwell telling viewers, “You decide which!”
By Monday, the video had disappeared from X, although users’ responses were still visible. One supporter wrote that a campaign “calling out how dumb Americans are” was such a bold move that it might persuade them to see the film.
Another post urged viewers to “prove the Europeans wrong” by going to the cinema, describing it as a “patriotic duty.”
A third user remarked that the campaign appeared to be “straight up calling out Americans for being the only people who didn’t like the movie.”
It is an eye-catching strategy, although the film has not exactly thrived outside the United States either. Digger took in only $12 million internationally across 74 countries during its opening weekend.
The official Digger account has leaned into the movie’s divisive reception, sharing favorable audience reactions across social media
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British reviewers, however, have generally responded more warmly than critics in the US.
Our News Outlet critic Brian Viner awarded the movie four stars, writing that he had already watched Digger twice and enjoyed the second viewing more because he understood the twists from the beginning.
“On the first viewing, I thought it became trapped in its own concept and elaborate style, turning not only confusing but also self-indulgent,” he wrote.
Viner nevertheless called it “bold and often brilliant film-making,” adding that Iñárritu, Cruise and Goodman could all be worthy of Oscar consideration. He also praised the supporting work from Ahmed, Sandra Hüller and Jesse Plemons—along with the film’s animatronic cat.
Other critics to laud the film included the BBC’s Nicholas Barber, who wrote in his four-star review: ‘Personally, I loved it. Some of its excesses are, well, a bit too excessive, and most viewers will wish it was shorter… but when Cruise is clambering all over the set, delivering thunderous lectures on the oil industry, I couldn’t help grinning at the gargantuan scale of his performance, the conviction of the script’s grim environmental message, and Iñárritu’s antic style.’
However, many reviews were on the negative side, with The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw awarding the film just two stars.
He wrote: ‘As with Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, there may be a tacit consensus, understandable at some level, that at least we have a big mainstream movie which is talking about the biggest issue of our time, and we have a duty to suspend critical objection.
Join the discussion
Are American movie critics too harsh on bold films, or does Digger deserve its box office failure?
The studio appear to have had a change of heart with one post though, swiftly deleting a recent online ad which pitted the opinions of US critics against European reviews
‘Digger certainly resonates with Donald Trump’s greedy urge to despoil the Arctic and everywhere else. Yet there is something glib and overblown here. This film finds itself in a postmodern hole. And what do you do when you’re in a hole?’
Kevin Maher in The Times went further, and gave the film just one star while writing: ‘There surely exists an alternate movie universe where Digger is played by an actual ”older” actor, say Dustin Hoffman or Ben Kingsley, and in that universe that film is certainly more effective than this one.
Digger is one of the few awards-focused movies that Cruise has starred in for almost three decades and is directed by four-time Oscar winner Alejandro, who is known for his work on Birdman and The Revenant.
And some Hollywood insiders suggest that the movie star could still be on course for his first Oscar, despite the biggest box office flop of his career.
The actor has never won a competitive Academy Award, but did receive an honorary Oscar last year celebrating his four decades in Hollywood.
Awards site Gold Derby experts currently have Cruise in fourth for a Best Actor nomination (with odds at 63%) but caution the 2027 category is a hotly contested race with Andrew Scott (Elsinore), John Malkovich (Wild Horse Nine) and Matt Damon (The Odyssey) all thought to be shoo-ins for a nod.
