Melania Trump’s Advisor Shades Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ After Box Office Bomb — Even Though ‘Melania’ Doc Also Flopped in Theaters
Melania Trump’s senior advisor Marc Beckman took to social media after Tom Cruise‘s “Digger” flopped at the box office to explain to people how the First Lady’s much-reviled documentary “Melania” performed better at the box office earlier this year than mega-star Cruise’s latest endeavor.
“On a per-theater basis, ‘Melania’ outperformed Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ by approximately 67%, despite opening in roughly half as many theaters,” Beckman posted. “Digger played in 1,543 more theaters than ‘Melania.'”
“Melania” released in theaters in January and earned $7.1 million in its debut from 1,778 theaters in North America (a per-theater average of around $4,000). “Digger,” meanwhile,” grossed $8 million in its domestic debut from 3,321 theaters (a per-theater average of $2,408).
“‘Melania’ delivered extraordinary theatrical drawing power, rivaling some of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars,” Beckman claimed in a follow-up post. “Opening in just 1,778 theaters, the documentary generated $7.16 million in its opening weekend and $11 million in its first seven days. Even more impressive was its efficiency.”
“‘Melania’ generated $4,027 per theater during opening weekend —more than three times the per-theater performance of Julia Roberts’ recent wide release and approaching Leonardo DiCaprio’s, despite operating with less than half the theatrical footprint of a conventional Hollywood wide release,” he also claimed. “The results demonstrate something unmistakable: ‘Melania’ did not need Hollywood-scale distribution to command a Hollywood-scale audience.”
“Melania” finished its box office run with $16.6 million worldwide ($16.3 million of which came from domestic earnings), a strong haul for a documentary but a financial bomb theatrically considering Amazon paid $40 million to acquire “Melania” and then spent an additional $35 million on marketing.
As for “Digger,” the satirical black comedy from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the movie’s $8 million debut makes it one of Tom Cruise’s worst box office openings in history. The movie is now shaping up to be one of the biggest studio bombs ever considering its budget was north of $160 million. “Digger” cost an extra $100 million to market and would need to gross $350 million in theaters worldwide just to break even at the box office. The film is now expected to lose Warner Bros. at least $150 million to $200 million theatrically.
Cruise said right before the movie’s disastrous opening weekend that he does not make movies thinking about the project’s box office debut, explaining: “When I am making [movies], I’m not going, ‘Opening weekend!’ I feel very much like we’re going to make something that is a lasting piece of cinema.”
“Melania” declined 67% in its second weekend of release.
— Marc Beckman (@MarcBeckman) October 6, 2026MELANIA, The Film // By The Numbers
On a per-theater basis, MELANIA outperformed Tom Cruise’s DIGGER by approximately 67%, despite opening in roughly half as many theaters.
(Digger played in 1,543 more theaters than MELANIA.)
— Marc Beckman (@MarcBeckman) October 6, 2026MELANIA, The Film // By The Numbers
Julia Robert’s & Leonardo DiCaprioMELANIA delivered extraordinary theatrical drawing power, rivaling some of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars.
Opening in just 1,778 theaters, the documentary generated $7.16 million in its opening weekend… pic.twitter.com/Qgne6OciJT
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.