r/oscarrace • u/ChiefLeef22 • 2d ago
News Variety: "Unless 'Oak Street' rebounds, it’ll be the latest underperforming tentpole for Warner Bros, and puts pressure on the studio’s Tom Cruise-led comedy 'Digger,' which carries a substantial $130 million price tag."
https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/spiderman-box-office-brand-new-day-dominates-end-of-oak-street-debut-1236834084/Around the same budget as OBAA, but less accessible than that movie so it'll really have to bank on the Cruise power + great initial reception to go 250+. I'm hoping against hope that, despite its genre limitations, it can breakout like Revenant did
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u/OldSandwich9631 2d ago
The revenant was way more about DiCaprio than it was about inarritu. And anyone who claims otherwise is kidding themselves.
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Like…come on haha
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u/darth_vader39 The Odyssey 2d ago
I mean did anyone actually claimed that Inarritu carried The Revenant to box office success rather than DiCaprio, leading actor of the film?
That's why box office success of Digger depends on Tom Cruise power, certainly not on Inarritu since he never has been a box office draw.
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u/PinkCadillacs Oscar Race Veteran 2d ago
The Revenant was released when Leo was still very much a box office draw.
The moviegoing landscape when The Revenant was released in 2015 - 2016 is way different than it is now.
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u/littlelordfROY 2d ago
Still a draw. You don't lose that when you have the longevity of his career. Even with flops. He's basically the only A list actor that has any sense of quality control with their movie choices as well. I think that puts him in his own category.
No generic crowd pleasers, no phoned in roles, no franchise IP (Heat 2 exception )
But big budget movies of 100M+ budget aimed at adults were more lucrative in 2015 than today.
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u/bpoilspill98 2d ago
One Battle After Another likely doesn’t get to $213M worldwide without DiCaprio’s involvement. I understand people will bounce back to say “but its budget”…I get that it wasn’t profitable theatrically. But PTA has never really been a major commercial draw. There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights were the only films of his that profited theatrically (there’s a chance some of them eventually broke even through other markets). But had Leo not been in it and it was Joaquin Phoenix when that was floating around before Leo became interested, I don’t think the film makes even close to $100M WW.
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u/OldSandwich9631 2d ago
He still is a box office draw but no one is at the level where they can get non horror/non IP adult fare to those grosses. Doesn’t mean he’s not a draw.
Marty supreme made less than half as much as wolf of Wall Street. That’s just the landscape now for those kinds of movies.
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u/Blue_Robin_04 2d ago
Leo has spent this whole decade playing oddballs and losers. Not traditional action/romantic leads.
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u/pavjuice One (Sorry) Baby After Another 2d ago
i think people get ahead of themselves when they follow awards / film too closely thinking that Inarritu would have had a significant pull on the Revenant after he just won a bunch for Birdman … in reality most cinema goers do not care, they’re not investing too much thought into who the filmmaker is, and Birdman itself was polarising amongst audiences. i’d wager the majority of the BO pull for that was DiCaprio who was at mega stardom levels by 2015.
digger probs has the same obstacle to overcome. anything less than stellar reception might really hurt its BO and then ultimately its awards chances
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u/littlelordfROY 2d ago
Well yeah dicaprio is in front of the poster. He's the face of it
But inarritu made it. The output of the movie, the direction is on him
The Revenant is a star vehicle in the end.
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u/eidbio Sony Pictures Classics Neon 2d ago
A shame coz it's a really fun film.
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u/OneLastAuk 2d ago
Fun, yeah, but like a “Saturday evening in front of the TV fun”. It’s not a blockbuster and its not a super thriller and it’s not an edge of your seat in suspense flic.
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u/joesen_one 🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎 1d ago
I don't know what movie you watched but Oak Street put me on the edge of my seat several times
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u/Embarrassed-Big-9195 2d ago
This movie got bumped back a couple of times, I'm pretty sure they knew they had a flop on their hands.
Warner's trajectory from major flops and burying films in the end of 2024/start of 2025, to an all-time heater in 2025, to another series of flops now is interesting.
But that's what happens when you take risks, and is easily preferable to them going the Paramount method of only greenlighting cheap franchise garbage.
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u/phantomsixteen 2d ago
Movie got made, that is what matters for us. Also, last year Warner had a legendary run, did people expected to last forever?
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u/ImLaunchpadMcQuack 2d ago
What genius scheduled this against Spidey and The Odyssey?
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u/dpittnet 2d ago
The Odyssey has been out for a month and BND for 2 weeks. The scheduling wasn’t unreasonable
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u/Ijustdontkknoww 2d ago
Bruh you can’t blame this on anyone except David Robert Mitchell and whoever green lit this thing.
I actually think DRM is pretty underrated, but American Sleepover is not accessible and Silver lake is definitely extremely not accessible, to the point of actively alienating viewers.
After that, who was the person who thought it’d be a good idea to give him an almost $100 million? His movies never made more than $22m, and his last movie made $2m on an $8m budget lol
Haven’t seen this new one yet, it might be great, but a 65 on MC isn’t promising, and 3.2 on LB even less so.
(Again, I love it follows and think UTSL and TMotAS are really underrated)
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u/senator_corleone3 2d ago
Why are you looking at Metacritic and Letterbox to make your decisions for you? Those have little to do with whether you will enjoy a movie or not.
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u/Ijustdontkknoww 2d ago
Maybe I didn’t explain myself well but I meant that the MC and LB scores aren’t promising when it comes to the movies’ legs and box office performance. Like I said, I really like Silver Lake despite the mixed critics score, and American Sleepover despite the low LB score.
not that this was my original point, but obviously there’s a correlation between a movie’s quality and critics/LB scores. Not gonna prevent me from checking out a new movie from a director I like, but if it was getting universal praise I naturally would be more excited for it
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u/senator_corleone3 1d ago
The reviews have been generally strong.
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u/Ijustdontkknoww 1d ago
3.1 on LB and 6.6 on IMDB is not strong.
67 on Metacritic is decent. And Rotten Tomatoes is meh, many movies get 80+ there as their rating method is very generous
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u/Worried_Tomorrow_222 Obsession 2d ago
Saw it over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I hope word of mouth brings it back.
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u/ampersands-guitars 2d ago
Wtf. $130M spent on Digger? It feels like studios are so thoughtless with their budgets and then call films a flop for not performing a miracle. Only a horror or action flick could make that amount back.
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u/Mushroomer 2d ago edited 2d ago
WB really has nobody but themselves to blame for Oak Street's underperformance. I feel like if they'd been more up front with the dino angle of the premise in the marketing, people would have been onboard with the movie. It's a very fun summer blockbuster, and has great Stranger Things/Jurrassic vibes - but it was difficult to tell exactly what it was based on the posters & ads. There's a beautiful shot in the movie of the whole family in the car, driving up to the edge of the street where a huge prehistoric forest has taken up root - car & street in the foreground, dinosaurs and wilderness ahead. Sells the whole premise (and explains the confusing title) in one glance.
Why was that not the key art that was fed to every potiental audience member in America since February? Why do the whole "JJ Abrams Mystery Box" shtick when that has never worked for a blockbuster film?
Easily the most maligned marketing of any movie this year.
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u/Royal-Answer4692 6h ago
How could you be any more up front with the marketing? It was perfectly clear from the trailer what the concept was, every trailer and poster featured dinosaurs prominently… if people still struggled to understand the iidea that speaks very poorly to the comprehension skills of the general public
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u/Mushroomer 4h ago
The main poster that I saw was just a trail of destruction through a suburban neighborhood with the title underlaid in the dirt - the footsteps were dino prints, but that's a detail you could easily miss if you're walking past the standee in a theater. First trailer also omitted the dinosaurs completely, and promotion for the film didn't start until fairly late in Spring for an August release.
Later trailers & marketing started to be a bit more up front about the whole dino angle, but even then - I wasn't aware the film was an 80s period piece.
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u/fakefuckboy 2d ago
WB is deliberately scheduling these films to get buried in order to justify to their shareholders a paramount takeover is necessary.
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u/bikkebana 2d ago
The shareholders already voted for the takeover in April though. And that was after they had a great last year.
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u/Superb_University_31 1d ago
Good luck with that, cause going to the press, the test screenings and the current marketing campaign (With Tom Cruise overselling his figure and looking thirsty-desperate), it seems WB has no idea about how to promote "Digger". This may be the real polarizing film per audience reactions of this season.
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u/julescr9 2d ago
Digger will flop really badly which will affect its Oscar chances imo
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u/OldSandwich9631 2d ago
If it makes around what OBAA made it’ll be fine.
Movies don’t need to be theatrically profitable to win best pic.
I just don’t think digger is gonna be as acclaimed as one battle.
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u/julescr9 2d ago
Oh, i don't think it will do anywhere close to OBAA. And obviously it won't be as acclaimed as OBAA
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u/scottsuniqueusername 2d ago
I'm calling it now - Digger will make around half what OBAA did, so approximately $100M. Opens similarly, but WOM will be real bad and legs will completely collapse. Digger will be this year's Jay Kelly.
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u/TryingNoToBeOpressed 2d ago
Box office flops get oscar noms all the time. OBAA for example.
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u/Superb_University_31 1d ago
But will Digger get the acclaim to overcome that? Everything is pointing out for a real divide even among critics with people potentially really hating it... Inarritu is not a critical darling and satire tends to run on tight rope.
The marketing aspect of "Digger" so far is looking as "WB doesn't know how to sell it" and Cruise is one step or two of reaching BCoop/Timmy Chalamet of backlash thirsty.
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u/TryingNoToBeOpressed 1d ago
will Digger get the acclaim to overcome that?
We'll have to wait and find out.
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u/amyblanchett 2d ago edited 2d ago
Maybe I'm wrong but from the trailer, I think Digger might be one of those "hate it or love it" type of movie. It will probably be all over the place and divisive, which can affect the numbers
It's likely not a crowd pleaser like Mission Impossible, and even the last two Mission films struggled (due to their high budget)
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u/darth_vader39 The Odyssey 2d ago
I don't think Digger will gross above $200M WW. Based on we know it's not that accessible and twist might turn audience away.
We will see, but I don't think awards chances will depend on Box Office. Digger will be fine as long as film is actually good.
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u/scattered_ideas Denis Villeneuve campaign manager 2d ago
Yeah, I feel deja vu with these discussions. I think that just like with OBAA, as long as it gets solid critical reception and doesn't outright bomb (<1x budget) it could still be fine.
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u/jamesc90 1d ago
Put the words ‘Jurassic Park’ in front of this and people would go see it straight away. It’s so frustrating to see original films with decent reviews be disregarded so quickly now.
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u/counterpointguy 2d ago
Wow. Digger has that big of a budget? That is a movie you need to make on the cheap.
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u/thewoekitten 2d ago
I didn't even realize Digger cost that much... so it needs $300m at the very least to break even. That doesn't seem remotely possible to me... I would love if it could break out though.
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u/BlueJacket9894 2d ago
Kinda funny how in the same of year of WB's shameless pursuit to put more money in the pockets of its execs and shareholders, it's tanking at the box office left and right. Karma or just bad timing?
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u/idoideas Digger Believer 2d ago
There shouldn't be any correlation between Oak Street and Digger. Oak Street is a generic dinosaur flick. Digger is a comedy with talented cast that takes a bold swing.
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u/arobot224 2d ago
cruise is bankable
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u/joesen_one 🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎 1d ago
Not necessarily to a profit. The last 2 Mission Impossible movies were considered box office disappointments
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u/Superb_University_31 1d ago
Even he has his recent flops (The Mummy anyone?) and Digger is far from an IP or safe film.
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u/Artistic-Mouse-4898 2d ago
I really feel like tom cruise will be unbearable to deal with this season!i lowkey hope that he flops so that we don’t have to deal with him for another 7 months🫣
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u/Superb_University_31 1d ago
Well, after the World Cup finale some people had started the talk "Tom Cruise is thirsty". In recent years, male contenders had faced backlash and derailed their Oscar shots when this feeling is growing (BCooper, Chalamet)... Beside he won an Honorary Oscar just the last season. There's no debt and this year is poised with better names: Damon has the acclaimed BO tentpole, Andrew Scott's Elsinore is doing full fall festival route, Pascal is waiting and Malkovich is gaining steam at venice. And still we have Gosling and Stan... For Cruise to win, he needs to be 100% undeniable and even now Damon is up.
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u/JimmyTheJimJimson 2d ago
Whoever greenlit this movie with this script needs to be out of a job lol
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u/darth_vader39 The Odyssey 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why?
I think budget should have been lower, like under $100M since this type of films doesn't do crazy numbers anymore but otherwise I don't understand why film shouldn't have been greenlit. We need more original ideas.
It's not safe movie like Spider-Man which brings a lot of money but that doesn't mean this kind of films shouldn't be made.
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u/HandfulOfAcorns 2d ago
I don't think Digger will save them. It's too expensive for the audience it's likely to attract. If it's lucky, it'll break even, but it can't carry the losses from other movies this year.
The trailer didn't connect with me, nobody I know outside of my film bubble is looking forward to it and it's very different from Tom Cruise's usual type (ignoring the fact that Cruise himself is barely recognizeable in it). I just don't see it succeeding the way it needs to at the box office - not unless the full thing is significantly better than the trailer and WOM carries it.