Ben Affleck Defends Tom Cruise’s DIGGER and Warns That Attacking Risky Movies Will Lead to More “Shitty Homogenized Movies”

Ben Affleckhas a problem with the way Hollywood and moviegoers are celebrating the box office failure of Tom Cruise’s Digger, and I think he makes a very good point.

The actor argues that when audiences pile on ambitious movies for failing financially, they’re only encouraging studios to play it safe and keep pumping out the same recycled entertainment.

Affleck recently spoke out about the reaction to Digger, comparing the public celebration of its failure to high school bullying.

“It’s a little bit like the high-school bullying thing, with people who hadn’t even seen movies. You see it happening now, frankly, with Digger, everybody wants to celebrate this bomb as if it’s the most exciting thing to happen. And you think like, it’s a pretty ambitious, interesting movie made by interesting people who have talent.”

He continued with a warning about what happens when Hollywood starts treating creative risks as something to avoid.

“Everybody wants to count the money, what it lost or whatever. To me, I just think, if you punish movies that take risks, guess what you’re going to get? A bunch of shitty homogenized movies. You cannot do something interesting without taking a big swing. And that means you’re going to sometimes look bad.”

I completely agree with Affleck here. I want Hollywood to make more original, unusual, and risky movies! I want filmmakers to experiment with different ideas and tell stories that we haven't seen a hundred times already.

Does every experimental movie need a budget approaching $200 million? Absolutely not. Studios can make interesting, original films without spending a fortune. But when something like Digger gets absolutely hammered by critics and audiences, the message Hollywood executives are going to take away from it isn't exactly encouraging.

They're going to look at those losses and become even more reluctant to finance anything outside their comfort zone. That's how we end up with fewer original ideas and more movies that feel like they were manufactured from the same formula. At that point, you might as well just start letting AI write the movie scripts.

Of course, the financial situation surrounding Digger is pretty brutal. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the film stars Cruise as an oil tycoon facing a potential apocalypse after a malfunction at one of his Antarctic oil rigs sends massive ice caps hurtling toward Europe.

The movie opened on October 2 and has earned just $15 million domestically. Critics have been divided, with the film sitting at 53% on Rotten Tomatoes.

With a production budget exceeding $160 million and an estimated $100 million spent on marketing, Digger reportedly needed around $350 million to break even theatrically. Warner Bros. is looking at an estimated $245 million loss, putting it among the biggest financial disasters in the studio's history.

Those numbers are rough, and there's no getting around that. But Affleck, who has experienced his own share of box office disappointments, believes there's something troubling about the enthusiasm people have for watching a movie fail.

He's also far from the only person defending Digger. Legendary musician Neil Young recently took to his website to call the film “the best film I have ever seen.”

Young went even further in explaining why he believes audiences are missing something special. “None of the reviews I have read describe this film adequately, in my opinion. They seem to miss the overall effect and most of them are negative.

“This film lives in a world of art. It is its own best review. Don’t read any other reviews and forget this one before you see Digger. It cannot be seen as a Tom Cruise film – that would be misleading. I would describe it as a film of our times… I do not view this film as a commercial venture.

“Rather it is an artful film of our times. The things that are said in Digger are a direct reflection of today’s political and social world. The film is so full of artful expression and radical change ups, that it may be too much to take in for those expecting a commercial film like we are used to today.”

Mandy Patinkin, known for Homeland and his extensive stage career, was equally enthusiastic. The Tony Award winner called Digger an “instant classic” and “one of the greatest pieces of film I have ever seen in my entire life.”

He added: “This is an incredible piece of work. It puts the heart and soul back into the cinema. Everything we all love about cinema, this is it. Please, please, please, run! Don’t walk, run, and see this film.”

Anne Hathaway also came to the movie's defense, sharing her enthusiasm in a Letterboxd review. “I loved this brilliant movie. It’s smart and trippy and aggressive and funny and ambitious.”

Look, nobody has to like Digger. Taking a creative risk doesn't automatically make a movie good, and audiences have every right to criticize something that doesn't work for them. A filmmaker's ambition doesn't put their work above criticism.

But there's a difference between criticizing a movie and celebrating its financial destruction. Hollywood has already become heavily dependent on established franchises, recognizable brands, sequels, and remakes. There's certainly a place for those movies, and I enjoy plenty of them. But I don't want that to be all we get.

I'd rather see a filmmaker take a chance on something strange and ambitious, even if it doesn't completely work, than watch studios become so terrified of failure that they stop trying anything different.

The massive losses surrounding Digger are exactly the kind of thing that can make studio executives nervous about investing in original films. That's unfortunate because the lesson shouldn't be to stop taking creative risks. It should be to find smarter ways to finance and support them.

Affleck's larger point is worth paying attention to. If we want Hollywood to deliver more original stories, we can't expect every unconventional movie to be a massive blockbuster.

Source: Variety