Warner Bros Tells Moviegoers to Decide on Tom Cruise's Digger

Warner Bros is telling moviegoers to judge for themselves on Digger, as Alejandro G. Iñárritu's satire starring Tom Cruise heads for about $8 million in domestic ticket sales for the weekend to Sunday, 4 October 2026, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

That figure covers domestic, meaning the United States and Canada. It is a studio estimate until Monday's actuals. It sits well below the $12 million to $15 million domestic opening Warner Bros had predicted, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The push is built around a new online ad. The spot is organised around a split between American critics and critics elsewhere, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It opens with Cruise, as Digger Rockwell, saying, "America has stood beside the world in its darkest of hours." Riz Ahmed's character answers, "Not anymore."

Then comes the contrast. A Mexican YouTuber calls the film "Epic, Extraordinary and Biting." That is cut against The Playlist, flagged with a United States flag, calling it "Grotesque, Deliberately Tacky," according to The Hollywood Reporter. A French critic hails "A Gem of Intelligence." That is cut against the New York Post calling it "An Unintentionally Bad Movie."

It ends bluntly. Cruise's character declares, "You decide which!" The tagline echoes an earlier "Decide for Yourself" pitch reported by Variety on 29 September amid negative buzz, with some critics calling the film "Unpleasant" and "Baffling."

The numbers explain the tactic. Digger, characterised as a satire by The Hollywood Reporter, earned $1.2 million in previews in the United States and Canada, that outlet reported on 3 October. Its projected budget is $125 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Another film, Verity, led the box office ahead of Digger, which was heading for less than $10 million, that outlet reported on 3 October.

Reviews remain divided. Rotten Tomatoes, a site that aggregates reviews, lists Digger at 50 percent positive, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In France, the aggregation site AlloCiné gives it an average press rating of 3.2 out of 5 across 30 reviews. U.S. moviegoers polled on Friday gave it a C+ CinemaScore, a grade based on a survey of opening-night audiences.

For fans, this means a noisy choice. Warner Bros lists Digger as releasing on 2 October 2026, with its international release beginning 30 September 2026, according to the studio's official film page, which names Cruise in the title role. The studio is betting audiences will come to settle the argument themselves.