Skydance says Tom Cruise's Digger cost $250 million — and wants you to know whose fault it was

The number arrived October 29 via Page Six: sources estimate that the 2026 slate greenlit by ousted Warner film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy will lose Skydance more than $800 million. The itemization: a $250 million write-off on Tom Cruise's Digger, more than $100 million on The Bride!, and about $75 million on One Battle After Another — a film that won an Oscar and still makes the list. A source describes the duo's spending as "beyond reckless," and the two are reportedly now blaming each other, with insiders pointing at Abdy for Digger specifically, citing her closeness to Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

Digger is the showpiece of the case. Iñárritu's satire cast Cruise as an oil magnate whose drilling triggers an ecological disaster; it premiered September 22, opened October 2, and had $41 million worldwide by mid-October) against a budget the studio insists is $125 million and insiders put at $160–180 million. A C+ CinemaScore did the rest. It was also, by four days, the last film Warner Bros. released before the October 6 merger — which is where this story gets interesting.

The $250 million that never touched Skydance's books

The merger timing matters because of how acquisition accounting works. Digger flopped days before Skydance's opening balance sheet was drawn up, which means the film entered the new company's books already valued at approximately nothing — the loss lives on the old Warner Bros. Discovery ledger, not on Skydance's income statement. The $800 million isn't a hole in the new owners' pocket. It's a number assembled for an audience, and the audience is everyone about to be affected by what Skydance does next.

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Because the real subjects of the story are three films nobody has seen:

• Paris Paramount: Nancy Meyers' rom-com with Penélope Cruz, Kieran Culkin and Jude Law, budgeted at $120-plus million after Scarlett Johansson dropped out. Skydance higher-ups are described as "deeply concerned."
• The Great Beyond: J.J. Abrams' sci-fi tentpole, moved from November 13, 2026 to 2027. The official reason is IMAX-related; sources say it simply wasn't testing well.
• Panic Carefully: Sam Esmail's $160 million psychological thriller with Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Olsen, Eddie Redmayne and Brian Tyree Henry, dated April 9, 2027. Per one source: "They don't know what to do with that film."

Put the leak next to that list and the function is clear. Skydance film bosses Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein inherited three expensive, adult-skewing originals they didn't order, and the $800 million story pre-assigns the blame for whatever happens to them — a recut, a dump date, a sale, or a shelf. When the decision comes, the narrative will already be a year old: it was De Luca and Abdy's money, and it was already lost.

Netflix passed on Digger, The Bride! and the Nancy Meyers rom-com before Warner greenlit all three. Two of them are now exhibits in the $800 million case. The third is still waiting to come out.

There's a precedent for why the new regime is doing it this way. When David Zaslav shelved the finished Coyote vs. Acme in 2023 for a $30 million write-down, the backlash attached itself to him personally and never let go. Skydance watched that and drew the obvious lesson — not that you can't kill expensive movies, but that you brief the press first. The Meyers and Roberts films may yet open wide and even work; adult-skewing originals occasionally embarrass the forecasts. They'll just do it as the movies a $800 million headline already buried, which is a strange way to enter the world, and exactly the point.

Previously we wrote: Clayface end credits: the Batman rumor, the Wayne Enterprises nod, and whether to stay