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Warner Bros.' Digger opens to $20 million worldwide on up to $250 million in spending
Warner Bros.' Digger opened to $20 million worldwide against up to $250 million in production and marketing spend. It lands days before Paramount Skydance takes control of the studio, whose new owners will decide what kind of films Warner makes next.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- The opening split into $8 million in North America and $12 million from 74 international markets.
- U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin approved the $110 billion Paramount Skydance deal for Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday, and Paramount said it would close on Tuesday.
- Reviews were bad enough that Warner ran 'decide for yourself' ads, and opening estimates had been cut over the prior week.
- Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, the film group co-chairs who backed Digger, are expected to leave this week, with mass layoffs anticipated to follow.
- Warner has not had a film reach $100 million domestically this year, a mark its December release Dune: Part III is expected to pass easily.
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Why it matters
- exposure From Tuesday, Digger's remaining run and its losses sit with Paramount Skydance's owners, on a film greenlit by executives who are on their way out.
- decision The first slate question for Ellison, Greenstein and Goldberg is whether Warner keeps paying for original films from star directors at all, and Digger is the newest evidence on the table.
- precedent If Paramount carries its own habits into Warner, as Gross expects, a $150 million original pitch becomes harder to get approved at the combined studio.
The overseas figure is the weaker half of the opening. Cruise is typically a big draw abroad, Fortune reported [12], yet $12 million across 74 markets comes to about $162,000 a market [4]. Even at that rate, international sales supplied 60% of the worldwide total [5].
Fortune put the production cost at a minimum of $125 million, with other reports closer to $150 million, plus an estimated $100 million in marketing [4][5]. That puts the all-in spend at $225 million to $250 million [2], and the first weekend's ticket sales equal 8% to 9% of it [3]. Cruise's last major disappointment, 2017's The Mummy, grossed $409.2 million worldwide on a $195 million budget [15], about 2.1 times its production cost [6]. Digger's opening covers 13% to 16% of its production cost [7].
None of this reaches the merger price. The film's all-in spend is about 0.2% of the $110 billion deal value [8], and the judge approved that price on Wednesday, before the weekend's numbers came in [6]. Fortune's report does not address how the combined company will account for the film.
Two things could still improve the picture for the film itself. The bull case is an awards run, since Warner dated Digger almost exactly where it put One Battle After Another last year [13], but a 51% Rotten Tomatoes score and a C+ CinemaScore [10] make that a long shot. Overseas sales could also build after the opening, given Cruise's usual pull abroad [12].
The third variable is the owners, and I'd expect them to stop paying for this kind of film. David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a box office newsletter, wrote that the incoming team of David Ellison, Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg "will soon decide what kind of movies they want from WB" [9]. "Paramount does not have a recent history of making big, auteur-driven films like this," he wrote, adding that "that strategy appears to be over and out" [17].
The counter-case is a year old. One Battle After Another, a similarly political original from a top filmmaker [13], grossed $213.2 million worldwide and won best picture [14]. That entire run is still $11.8 million short of Digger's lowest cost estimate [9]. Warner's only film this year headed past $100 million domestically is a December sequel, Dune: Part III [8]. The view is wrong if the combined studio approves another original from a star director at $125 million or more within a year of the close.
What to watch
- Digger's second-weekend drop, domestically and across its 74 international markets.
- Whether the combined company reports a charge tied to Digger or Warner's film slate in its first results after the Tuesday close.
- The first original film from a star director that the Ellison, Greenstein and Goldberg team approves or cancels at Warner.