Digger Budget

What Is the Budget of Digger?

Digger (2026), directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and released by Warner Bros. Pictures, carries a reported production budget of $125,000,000, the figure published by The Hollywood Reporter and listed by The Numbers. Variety has reported that the cost grew to as much as $180,000,000 after production ran long, so $125,000,000 should be read as the floor of the reported range rather than a final, studio-confirmed number.

What can be said is that Digger is a large studio production: a satirical comedy starring Tom Cruise, produced by Legendary Pictures and Domain Entertainment, shot on film at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom over roughly six months.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

Warner Bros. has not published a line-item breakdown, but the production itself shows where the money went.

• Cast: Tom Cruise plays a dual role, alongside Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons, an ensemble with several leads.
• Film Capture: The film was shot on 35mm film, including in the VistaVision format, with Emmanuel Lubezki as cinematographer. Film stock, processing and specialist lenses are a distinct cost line from digital capture.
• A Long Shoot: Principal photography ran from November 7, 2024 to May 3, 2025 at Pinewood Studios, and was paused for two days in March 2025 during John Goodman's hip surgery. Schedule extensions are one reason reported budgets rose.
• Visual Effects: Industrial Light & Magic and Legacy Effects are credited, pointing to a meaningful effects and prosthetics line.

How Does Digger's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

Digger belongs to a recent run of expensive, director-driven studio bets that struggled to find a mass audience. Their budgets give the scale to hold it against.

• Megalopolis (2024): Budget $120,000,000 | Worldwide $14,387,154. The closest comparison in spirit: a large, auteur-driven production that opened far below its cost.
• Babylon (2022): Budget $78,000,000 | Worldwide $65,267,446. Another expensive, ambitious studio original that failed to recoup despite a high-profile cast.
• Joker: Folie à Deux (2024): Budget $190,000,000 | Worldwide $207,500,287. A costly, divisive follow-up from Warner Bros. whose budget sits just above the top of Digger's reported range.

Digger Box Office Performance

Digger opened in fifth place with $8,000,000 domestically from 3,321 theaters, a per-theater average of $2,408, according to Sunday studio estimates reported by Box Office Mojo. Overseas markets added an estimated $12,000,000, for a worldwide opening of $20,000,000. Trade coverage described the result as Tom Cruise's lowest opening in 19 years. These are opening-weekend estimates and will be revised.

Warner Bros. has not disclosed its marketing spend, and with the production budget itself reported anywhere from $125,000,000 to $180,000,000, a total investment and return cannot be calculated honestly, so those rows are left unfilled below.

The worldwide total splits 40% domestic and 60% international. Against the reported $125,000,000 production budget, the $20,000,000 opening covers about 16% of the production cost alone, before any marketing, which makes the film's second weekend and international rollout the figures to watch.

Because Warner Bros. has not disclosed its marketing spend and the budget is disputed, Saturation does not publish a return per dollar invested for "Digger".

Digger Production History

Alejandro G. Iñárritu conceived Digger after making The Revenant (2015), and began discussing it with Tom Cruise in 2019 while Cruise was filming Top Gun: Maverick (2022). The project was announced in February 2024 under the working title Judy, with a screenplay credited to Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, from a story by Berman, Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth.

Filming took place from November 7, 2024 to May 3, 2025 at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. Fahadh Faasil was originally cast as Dr. Nirav Ganesh before Riz Ahmed took the role. Cosmo Sheldrake composed the score in his feature film debut, and Stephen Mirrione and Conor O'Neill edited.

Digger premiered in London's Leicester Square on September 22, 2026, opened internationally on September 30 and reached United Kingdom and United States theaters on October 2, 2026.

Awards and Recognition

Digger has not received any major awards or nominations as of early October 2026. It premiered at a Royal Film Performance in London on September 22, 2026, and its release is too recent for an awards run to have begun.

Critical Reception

Reviews were divided. At the time of writing, Digger holds 51% on Rotten Tomatoes from 251 critics, with an average rating of 6.1/10, and a Metacritic score of 45 out of 100 from 56 critics, classed as mixed or average. Audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore, and PostTrak reported that 47% would definitely recommend it.

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus reads "A stylized satire whose audacious design proves too mannered for some of the laughs to smoothly land." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it a "lumbering white elephant of a movie," and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it two out of five stars. On the other side, Robbie Collin of The Telegraph gave it four out of five and called it a "Dr. Strangelove for the climate crisis," and Amy Nicholson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that she did not entirely love the film but was giddy that it exists.