Tom Cruise’s Digger Officially Beats Top Gun Despite Worst Box-Office Opening

Tom Cruise’s Digger has received one saving grace amidst all the divisive responses. On Letterboxd, Cruise’s climate action satire with Alejandro G. Iñárritu has scored 3.8 out of 5, edging it past the actor’s 80s classic Top Gun. The action drama directed by Tony Scott received a 3.5 rating, making Digger one of the actor’s higher-rated movies.

Apart from the fan platform, Cruise’s movie looks grim as critics have been divided over its overall quality. Many have called it infuriating and testing, while others have appreciated Cruise for his performance. Regardless, the film has scored a pretty low opening as it competes with a stacked set of releases.

Digger’s Letterboxd Score Becomes a Saving Grace for the Movie

Tom Cruise in Top Gun | Credits: Paramount

Top Gun is one of Tom Cruise’s most iconic films. His role as Maverick made him a huge star, and the film itself has been important for the US Navy to recruit more members into its ranks. Decades later, the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, earned over a billion dollars at the box office and practically saved cinema from the low footfalls of the pandemic.

Digger, on the other hand, has not been a sure-shot hit that it promised. On paper, it was a very interesting project. Cruise coming together with a 2-time Oscar-winning director like Alejandro G. Iñárritu after he made one of his most personal films in Bardo was a grand collaboration that was sure to produce some incredible art.

However, the initial reactions made it seem like it was meant for disaster. Reactions were extremely divisive, which is not new for Iñárritu. Rotten Tomatoes currently puts its critics’ score at 51% while audiences have rated it 71%. It is the lowest score for Cruise in the 2020s, with even his Mission: Impossible films scoring higher. That is why the Letterboxd rating is important.

Digger sits at 3.8, while the 1986 Top Gun, the film that made Cruise a global star, averages 3.5. The two pages also show how different the audiences are. Top Gun has around 18,000 fans, built over four decades of casual and nostalgic viewing. Digger had roughly 973 fans at the time of writing, which suggests an early crowd made up largely of dedicated cinephiles who sought it out on opening weekend. 

Digger’s Low Box Office Opening Spells Trouble for Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise in Digger | Credits: Warner Bros.

Beyond all the reviews and responses, Digger’s box office performance is what makes the film look like it is in for trouble. Deadline reported that the film got a meagre $8 million opening in its first weekend domestically, making it the worst Tom Cruise opening in 19 years. Cruise’s last big flop was Lions for Lambs, which had a $6.7 million opening.

Digger was not the solo release this week, as the Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway starrer, Verity, also received similarly terrible reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a critics’ score of 33%, which is significantly lower than Digger. However, the erotic thriller based on the novel by Colleen Hoover got a whopping $32.7 million opening domestically. Verity clearly won against Digger in this case.

Sure, Tom Cruise’s auteur feature is not in the same niche as Hathaway’s erotic thriller based on a popular novel. But it is still grim that Cruise’s star caliber could not get the film a more decent opening. It might also mean that the actor might not take as many risks in the future, despite his track record of balancing the art and the commercial sensibilities.

Where do you think Digger lacked in terms of its positioning? Comment below.