After originally being touted as the movie that could finally win Tom Cruise an acting Oscar, satirical black comedy Digger is now making headlines for a very different reason.

Hollywood experts are predicting that the widely panned Warner Bros flick ­­– dubbed “baffling” and “insufferable” by some critics ­– could end up being the biggest box office flop of all time.

Digger made around $US8 million ($A11.50 million) in the US and $20 million globally on its opening weekend, with ticket sales plummeting in the second weekend.

It’s now on track to lose around $US245 million ($A351 million), according to entertainment website Variety, which estimates it would need to make ­$US350 million just to break even.

Cruise, who plays an eccentric but powerful oil tycoon in the Alejandro G Iñárritu-directed film, is seemingly nonplussed by the box-office figures, saying his focus is on making films that “hopefully will translate, last and evolve”.

If Digger does end up losing more than $100 million, the BBC says it will be in the company of films such as Eddie Murphy’s 2002 flop The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which was nominated for multiple Razzie and Stinkers Bad Movie awards, and 1995 big-budget pirate adventure Cutthroat Island (starring Geena Davis and Matthew Modine), which for a time was listed in the Guinness World Records as the biggest-ever box-office bomb.

Cutthroat Island failed to cut through with audiences. Photo: MGM

But history does suggest Cruise has reason to be optimistic that Digger could overcome its shaky opening to stand the test of time in the film archives.

Here are five films that you might be surprised to learn were box-office flops:

Fight Club (1999)

Starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt as an insomniac office worker (the “narrator”) and charismatic soap salesman who start a brutal underground fight club, this film polarised audiences on its cinema debut.

Fight Club’s bare-knuckle male violence saw it dubbed “the ultimate anti-date flick” and it struggled to draw audiences, ultimately grossing just over $US100 million ($A144 million) worldwide after being made for a budget of $US63 million.

Today, however, the film is a cult classic, ranked number 14 on IMDb’s top 250 movies and earning a 81 per cent critics’ approval rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes.

It also didn’t hurt the careers of its stars or director, David Fincher, who went on to be nominated for three Academy Awards and is teaming up with Pitt again for the upcoming Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood spin-off The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

It seems critics and audiences didn’t know quite what to make of this wild ride of a movie from directing duo Joel and Ethan Coen, who a couple of years earlier won an Oscar for their acclaimed crime comedy Fargo.

Despite a top-notch cast including Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman and Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Big Lebowski earned just $US5.5 million (SA7.90 million) on its opening weekend in the US before ultimately grossing around $US48 million total worldwide.

But the twisty story revolving around Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski ­– a slacker in Los Angeles who ends up embroiled in a kidnapping and ransom scheme due to a case of mistaken identity ­– is still loved by many movie buffs.

“In fact, after two decades, the film looks weirdly less shaggy, less dishevelled,” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote in a five-star review revisiting the film in 2018.

Blade Runner (1982)

Science-fiction epic Blade Runner is now considered one of the all-time classics in its genre, yet it received a surprisingly lukewarm reception on its release. The general consensus seems to be that Ridley Scott’s ambitious film adaptation of Philip K Dick’s 1968 dystopian novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was simply misunderstood.

At the time, Variety described Blade Runner – starring Harrison Ford ­and Rutger Hauer – as a “stylistically dazzling film noir”, praising its special effects and “sheer virtuosity”. Thirty-five years later, in an article coinciding with the release of sequel Blade Runner 2049, it suggested the original film had been “so radical that it took several years for its impact to sink in”.

Blade Runner’s budget of around $US28 million ($A40 million) was considered huge at the time, and after an opening-weekend take of just of $A6 million in the US it ultimately grossed $US41.8 million worldwide at the box office.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Is there a person alive who hasn’t heard of Rocky Horror? The campy and kinky schlock-horror picture show that launched thousands – maybe millions – of midnight movie screenings remains an undeniable cult classic today.

In 1975, however, it attracted such poor ticket sales that was even pulled from some cinemas.

It was the midnight screenings (which began two years later), the late Tim Curry’s performance as “transvestite mad scientist” Frank-N-Further and its enduring themes that are credited with ultimately propelling The Rocky Horror Picture Show to success.

In the years since its premiere it has grossed more than $US120,000 million ($A173 million) and is the longest continually running theatrical release of all time.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Directed, co-written and starring influential actor and filmmaker Orson Welles, Citizen Kane is another film whose legacy belies its box office earnings. Made for a budget of less than a million dollars, it reportedly failed to recoup its costs.

Much of the blame is laid at the feet of media mogul William Randolph Hearst, the inspiration for Welles’ publishing tycoon character Charles Foster Kane. Hearst was so annoyed by the negative portrayal that he banned his papers from mentioning the film and even bribed cinemas not to play it, according to IndieWire.

Citizen Kane’s lasting success is Welles’ revenge. Film critic Roger Ebert has declared it a “masterpiece” and it is often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, topping a BBC poll of 62 critics around the world in 1915.

It may be some consolation for Tom Cruise and Digger’s creative team to know that the film was nominated for multiple Oscars, taking home the gong for best writing and original screenplay.