Few actors are a more reliable box-office draws than Tom Cruise: Worldwide, his films have grossed over $13 billion during his career. Director Alejandro Iñárritu has twice been honored with the Academy Award for best director (for "Birdman" and "The Revenant"). A movie that combines their formidable talents seems like a sure-fire winner—at least on paper.
But things didn’t turn out that way. In early October, "Digger" was released theatrically, and it generated domestic ticket sales of just $8 million over its opening weekend.
After three weekends, the film has earned just $42 million worldwide—far short of the revenue needed to recoup its production and marketing costs (estimated at $300 to $350 million in total). It is being widely described as a box-office bomb.
What went wrong? In hindsight, it’s easy to point fingers. Perhaps it was the film’s idiosyncratic trailer, or maybe a confusing marketing campaign was to blame.
But another reason for its underperformance may be the film’s genre. Digger is a satirical black comedy, and satire is notoriously difficult to execute—or even to be recognized as such.
Satirists have traditionally used tools like irony, exaggeration, and humor to lampoon their targets. "The Simpsons" would be a good example of this. But since it is a cartoon, we naturally expect outrageousness in the service of its social commentary.
Tom Cruise, on the other hand, is primarily known for his action movies, so theatergoers may not have been expecting a critique of corruption, greed, and environmental degradation.
Not What the Director Intended
But in failure, "Digger" has plenty of company. In 1997, Paul Verhoeven directed "Starship Troopers," which he conceived as a satire of fascism, militarism, and authoritarianism. Even though the film is full of over-the-top fascist elements, such as visual allusions to Nazi uniforms, mass rallies, and propaganda, many viewers enjoyed it as an action movie that celebrated military heroism—the exact opposite of the director’s intentions.
Similar misfires are not hard to find. David Fincher’s "Fight Club" (1999), for example, was intended by its director to be a critique of toxic masculinity and consumerism. Nevertheless, some audience members came away thinking that its main character was charismatic. Similar reactions were noted after the release of Oliver Stone’s "Wall Street" (1987) and Mary Harron’s "American Psycho" (2000): the satiric messages of these films were not always received by their viewers.
300 Years of Satire
As it happens, this month is witnessing not only the release of "Digger," but also the 300th anniversary of one of the most famous of all satires. On October 28, 1726, Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels, a work written to lampoon specific targets, such as King George I, Sir Robert Walpole, and the Royal Society.
Over time, however, these specific victims—so obvious to Swift’s original readership—have become unrecognizable. Today, the book is often viewed as a critique of human nature in general, or simply as a children’s adventure story. Time has filed away the sharp edges of Swift’s critique.
It seems that satiric works have always been fraught. A generation before Swift, a practitioner of the form named Daniel Defoe published The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702). Taking on the persona of a zealous High Church Anglican, Defoe proposed that dissenting clergy be hanged and their followers expelled from the country.
Defoe, however, was himself a Dissenter, and he was using satire to criticize England’s High Church extremists. His critique was so deadpan that some High Church officials failed to recognize the mockery. (When they did, Defoe was charged with seditious libel and imprisoned for half a year.)
A century later, Jane Austen satirized her society’s obsession with wealth and social status in Pride and Prejudice (1813), and the craze for Gothic novels in her Northanger Abbey (1817). But once again, the satire has become less sharp over time, and adaptations of her novels—in film and on television—have emphasized the elements of courtship and romance instead.
Media Essential Reads
Is It Good to Be a Giver?
Or consider Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree (1964). It tells the story of a boy and his interactions with an apple tree. As a child, he enjoys the tree’s shade and climbing in its branches. But as he gets older, the boy takes advantage of the tree’s bounty—he picks its apples, then saws off its branches (so that he can build a house) and finally cuts it down (so that he can construct a boat).
After each of these depredations, the narrator claims that “the Tree was happy.” And at the end, the tree has nothing left to give but its stump as a place for the boy, now an old man, to sit and rest. Nevertheless, we are assured that “the Tree was happy.”
What was Silverstein’s intention? Because The Giving Tree is a picture book, many have assumed that it was intended for children. It can, however, be interpreted as having very adult themes. It’s been suggested that the story is an allegory for unconditional love, or the parent-child bond. And it can also be read as satire—a cautionary tale about codependent relationships, or a critique of our exploitation of the Earth’s resources.
It is this ambiguity that is the hallmark of satire—and an important reason why it is so often misinterpreted. "Digger" may have failed theatrically, but it would not be the first such work to miss its mark.