It’s time to dig up the truth: Is Digger really all that bad? The Tom Cruise-starring doomsday satire film “will go down in box office history” as one of the biggest flops of all time, according to Variety, which projects Digger to lose roughly $245 million following its theatrical run. In our review, we called director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s story about an oil baron who’s accidentally caused a natural disaster a “ham-fisted doom-parody.” Yet, look around on social media and you’ll find the film’s greatest defenders reposting testaments to its brilliance from A-list celebrities and prominent filmmakers.
Did audiences and critics miss something? Is Digger... a good movie?
“Love it or not. And yes, I do. The film delivers in scale, ambition and reach,” director Guillermo del Toro wrote on Twitter/X. “Daring, bold and cinematically complex. Decidedly a theatrical experience.”
Digger’s marketing changed to “Decide For Yourself” after the poor reviews dropped. Then, the film received endorsements from Anne Hathaway (“It’s worth making the time to see and decide for yourself what you make of it. For me? 10/10”), Mandy Patinkin (“One of the greatest pieces of film I have ever seen in my entire life”), and Glen Powell (“This one is going to stand the test of time.”)
Though Digger holds a poor 53 percent among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score sits at 74 percent as of Tuesday, October 13. Plus, the film garnered a decent 3.9/5 rating from users on Letterboxd. As film distributor Janus Films stated, “Digger Nation Rising.”
Are audiences wrong about Digger?
Digger supporters have yet to change my mind about the film. I maintain that, even following an exciting twist that reframes the story, the characters that the film takes seriously are largely the same ones that it tells us to mock. Plus, when Digger finally arrives at the central thesis of the film, it’s all just a little too late. Still, when friends and coworkers ask me if they should see Digger, I tell them that it’s worth the experience.
Digger is an interesting film that sparks conversation. I’m glad that Iñárritu and Cruise took a big swing, even if they struck out. And if Hollywood studios stop supporting creatives from putting out bold ideas just because they’re afraid of losing money, audiences will watch nothing but proven IP box office winners and franchise tent poles forever.
As one fan on social media joked, “Many movies proclaim to be anti-capitalist but very few actually put in the legwork.”
But really, Ben Affleck said it best on a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “[Digger is] a pretty ambitious movie made by interesting people that have talent. If you punish movies that take risks, guess what, you're going to get a bunch of shitty homogenized movies.”
So, good or bad, and regardless of the projected box office, Hollywood should keep supporting movies like Digger. Just . . . maybe not Digger 2.