The facts
Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Digger," starring an unrecognizable Tom Cruise, is tracking to open as low as $8 million to $12 million this weekend. Previous tracking put the number around $30 million, then $20 million, and those figures were already considered worrisome.
Yesterday morning, the review embargo lifted and top critics savaged the $135 million (or more) apocalyptic satire, once envisioned as Cruise's prosthetically covered ticket to the elusive Best Actor Oscar. The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney wrote that the film is "so meta that you watch in excruciating weariness as it disappears up its own ass and then realize to your dismay that there’s another eardrum-shattering hour left to endure." The Post's Johnny Oleksinski gave it a rare zero stars. The Boston Globe called it "the worst movie of Tom Cruise’s career," and also gave it a zero. The film's 53% Rotten Tomatoes score, likely bolstered by influencers, obscures just how poorly it was received.
Warner Bros. has shifted gears to embrace the bad press. The studio rushed out a video on X urging audiences to "Decide for yourself." The promo opens with a quote from a freelance movie influencer with just 4,895 TikTok followers who says, “'Digger' is an ambitious film sure to polarize audiences.” It then cuts to Cruise's billionaire oil baron character bellowing: "You know what? F–k those people!"
At Sunday's Producers Guild of America Q&A, the hometown crowd was stunned. "You could feel the air drop out of the room," one veteran producer said. "It literally comes down to nobody read the script."
Boxoffice Pro's Daniel Loria projects a "modest" No. 5 finish with $8 million to $12 million. For comparison, Amazon MGM's "Verity" is tracking above $30 million. The $135 million price tag is Digger's real problem, a budget greenlit by Warner Bros. film heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy and sanctioned by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. Iñárritu's Birdman, which won a best picture Oscar in 2015, cost $18 million.
And within days, Warner Bros. becomes part of the Paramount merger. One dazed viewer noted the irony: the movie stars David Ellison's most viable movie star, a man he has made millions with on the "Top Gun" and "Mission: Impossible" franchises. "He bought the company with his biggest star that is going to lose millions of dollars."
Our take
This Alejandro González Iñárritu shitshow, 'Digger,' starring a face-fucked Tom Cruise, stumbles into theaters with a projected $8 million to $12 million opening, a catastrophic collapse from initial $30 million hopes. The reviews torpedoed it - David Rooney called it 'excrutiating weariness' and Johnny Oleksinski gave it a well-deserved zero stars. The Boston Globe branded it 'the worst movie of Tom Cruise's career,' another justified zero. Its 53% Rotten Tomatoes score probably came from desperate influencers trying to salvage this sinking Titanic. Warner Bros., grasping at straws, posted a promotional video featuring some random TikTok micro-influencer with 4,895 followers saying it's 'ambitious.' Yeah, ambitious like a turd in a tiara. Then it cuts to Cruise in character, bellowing like a drunken frat boy: 'Fuck those people!' Classy move, guys. At the Producers Guild of America Q&A, the crowd gasped - apparently nobody bothered reading the script. Boxoffice Pro predicts a 'modest' fifth place finish. Compare that to Amazon MGM's 'Verity,' tracking way above $30 million. This dumpster fire cost $135 million because Michael De Luca, Pam Abdy, and David Zaslav thought they'd create art. Meanwhile, David Ellison buys Warner Bros. and inherits this toxic waste with his prized cash cow, Tom Cruise, set to hemorrhage millions. What a perfect merger - a studio and a catastrophe in one fuckup package deal. And let's not forget Iñárritu's 'Birdman,' which snagged a best picture Oscar for under $20 million. These execs should get crucified for their role in this financial abomination. Their incompetence rivals that of the clown car full of hack writers crammed onto the production. They sank hundreds of millions into making a cinematic hemorrhoid that might gross less than a decent-sized mall food court renovation costs. Crucify these corporate cock-suckers, starting with De Luca, Abdy, and Zaslav - what fucking genius greenlit this crap? The four of them deserve each other's miserable company in this shitstorm. Get ready for Wall Street to give them a second helping of humble pie, served with extra-large side of schadenfreude. In conclusion, 'Digger' isn't just a bomb - it's a pyrrhic victory for corporate hubris and ego-stroking delusions of grandeur.
