Digger Was Killed By Critics Before Opening
John Goodman is finally speaking out about “Digger” flopping with critics and at the box office. During an appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, the actor said all of the negative pre-release buzz for the movie effectively killed its chances of making money at the box office. “Digger” cost north of $160 million to make and only earned $15 million in its domestic box office debut. The movie has yet to cross $50 million worldwide after one month in theaters.
“People are talking. It hurt. It kinda killed us before we even opened. [The headlines like]: ‘This will only make $5.’ It was good reason for people to avoid it,” Goodman said about the response. “I am proud of it. I had a ball doing it. It was a good six months out of my life. It is a huge swing. It’s going to be around for a long time.”
When asked if he still cares about what critics and audiences think of his work after so many years as a professional actor, Goodman responded: “Unfortunately I have to say that I am. I have to be very honest. I used to be less so. Maybe I am getting old and pathetic and it’s like, ‘Don’t hit me again!’ I put so much into this film and here you go. I am over it now. I am proud I did it.”
However, Goodman noted that “everything I have done for the Coen Brothers flopped initially… so who cares, man? I still have people coming up to me in the streets asking me about ‘Barton Fink’ and ‘Big Lebowski.’”
Goodman starred opposite Tom Cruise in “Digger,” directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Cruise plays 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. Goodman stars as the U.S. president. The movie strongly divided critics (53% on Rotten Tomatoes) and needed an estimated $350 million just to break even in theaters. It will now go down as one of the most costly studio flops in Hollywood history by losing Warner Bros. around $250 million in theaters.
Amid the movie’s disastrous box office run, various Hollywood celebrities rallied around Cruise and the movie. Neil Young posted on his website that “Digger” is “the best film I have ever seen.” Mandy Patinkin agreed, hailing Cruise’s latest as an “instant classic” and “one of the greatest pieces of film I have ever seen in my entire life.” Anne Hathaway, Jane Fonda, Ben Affleck and more also sung the movie’s praises, with Affleck condemning the public bashing of the movie.
“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,” Affleck said in his own “Happy Sad Confused” interview last month. “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.”
Watch Goodman’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast below.
