Tom Cruise's latest big-screen outing, "Digger," has gone from disappointing to disastrous: the Warner Bros. and Skydance release is now tracking to lose roughly $245 million over its theatrical run, according to industry sources, a sharp jump from earlier loss projections and one of the ugliest box-office outcomes of Cruise's four-decade career.

The film opened to just $8 million domestically across 3,321 theaters and $20 million worldwide, landing in fifth place for the weekend — Cruise's weakest opening since 2007's "Lions for Lambs." A second weekend of similarly soft business pushed studio insiders to revise the projected loss sharply upward, according to TheWrap, which separately reported Skydance executives now peg total losses, including post-theatrical revenue, closer to $250 million.

A budget dispute adds to the mess

Just how the film got so expensive remains a point of contention. Industry sources told Variety the production budget ballooned to between $160 million and $180 million after the shoot ran over schedule, but Warner Bros. has pushed back on that figure, insisting the real cost was closer to $125 million to $150 million. Marketing added an estimated $100 million more on top of whichever number is accurate.

DIGGER DUG ITS OWN GRAVE

That gap matters because it changes where the film's break-even point sits — Variety estimates the movie needed roughly $350 million worldwide to turn a profit, while a studio spokesperson puts that threshold closer to $300 million. Either way, "Digger" isn't coming close: Variety now projects it will finish its run with around $50 million in global ticket sales, while TheWrap's sources inside Skydance expect it to fall short of even $40 million.

The film's struggles stand out against a crowded fall box office where other new releases, including the horror sleeper hit "Other Mommy," have overperformed expectations, underscoring how far "Digger" has fallen short of its own ambitions.

How a Cruise vehicle flops this badly

Industry analysts point to a confluence of factors rather than any single misstep: a crowded fall release calendar, lukewarm reviews that undercut word-of-mouth, and a marketing campaign that struggled to define what, exactly, the film was selling beyond its star's name. Cruise has built a career on original, high-concept action vehicles rather than franchise sequels, a strategy that paid off spectacularly with "Top Gun: Maverick" but that leaves films like "Digger" with no built-in audience if the concept doesn't immediately click with moviegoers.

The financial mechanics of the loss are almost as notable as the number itself. Studios typically need a film to gross roughly two-and-a-half to three times its production budget to break even once marketing, distribution fees and theater splits are factored in — which is why even a nine-figure global haul can still represent a steep loss if the budget and marketing spend were high enough. With "Digger" tracking toward as little as $40 million worldwide against a combined budget-and-marketing spend well north of $200 million, the math simply never had a path to profitability once the opening weekend underwhelmed.

Warner Bros. and Skydance jointly financed and distributed the film, splitting both the financial upside and, now, the exposure to its losses. Neither studio has detailed publicly how the write-down will be allocated between them, though studio write-downs of this size are typically absorbed over multiple quarters rather than booked all at once.

What's next

Warner Bros. and Skydance have not announced any specific response to the losses, though the scale of the shortfall is likely to factor into how aggressively the studios greenlight similarly budgeted star vehicles going forward. For Cruise, long considered one of the few remaining stars who can open a movie on his name alone, "Digger" is shaping up as a rare, costly exception.