Ben Affleck Says Bullying ‘Digger’ Will Only Lead Studios to Make More ‘S—ty Homogenized Movies’: Don’t ‘Punish Movies That Take Risks’

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Ben Affleck is the latest celebrity to stick up for Tom Cruise‘s “Digger” amid its disastrous box office run, but he’s doing so by warning moviegoers what exactly their trashing of the movie will result in. Mainly, publicly bashing “Digger” will only lead the major Hollywood studios to make “shitty” movies that don’t stand out from each other (aka more IP and franchise fare).

“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,'” Affleck said. “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.”

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“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,” he continued. “You cannot do something interesting without taking a big swing. And that means you’re going to sometimes look bad.”

Affleck has weathered his own box office flops over the course of his decades-long career. “Digger,” from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, stars Cruis as an oil tycoon who is faced with the end of the world after one of his rigs in Antartica malfunctions and sends ice caps hurtling towards Europe. The movie strongly divided critics (53% on Rotten Tomatoes) and has only earned $15 million at the domestic box office since opening Oct. 2. With a production budget north of $160 million and a marketing budget pegged at $100 million, “Digger” would need to earn $350 million just to break even in theaters. The latest report from Variety has “Digger” loosing Warner Bros. around $245 million, making it one of the most costly flops in studio history.

Amid the movie’s unfortunate box office run, various Hollywood celebrities and industry names have rallied around Cruise and the movie. Neil Young recently posted on his website that “Digger” is “the best film I have ever seen.”

“None of the reviews I have read describe this film adequately, in my opinion,” Young wrote. “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 agrees with Young, as the “Homeland” star and Tony winner hailed Cruise’s latest as an “instant classic” and “one of the greatest pieces of film I have ever seen in my entire life,” adding: “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.”

“I loved this brilliant movie. It’s smart and trippy and aggressive and funny and ambitious,” Hathaway wrote on Letterboxd. “It’s worth making the time see and decide for yourself what you make of it. For me? 10/10.”

Watch Affleck’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.