John Goodman is finally speaking out about “Digger” flopping with critics and at the box office, saying the Tom Cruise satire was killed by negative buzz before it ever reached theaters. During an appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Goodman admitted: all of the negative pre-release buzz “effectively killed its chances of making money at the box office” — and “It hurt.”
John Goodman in Digger (Credits: Warner Bros. / Everett Collection)
The numbers are brutal. “Digger” cost north of $160 million to make and earned only $15 million in its domestic box office debut, per Variety. The film has yet to cross $50 million worldwide after a month in theaters, with reports suggesting Warner Bros. could lose as much as $150 million overall on the project.
John Goodman on Digger’s Box Office Disaster
The film — directed by two-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu and released on October 2 — follows Cruise as eccentric oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, whose Arctic drilling campaign unleashes a global environmental disaster. Goodman co-stars as hapless American president Compson, alongside Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons and Emma D’Arcy.
Cruise himself has addressed the flop, telling Kevin McCarthy’s On Film podcast that he hoped to make “a lasting piece of cinema,” comparing its fate to Blade Runner — written off in 1982 and canonized much later. It also marks his weakest wide opening in 19 years and his first “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes since 2017’s The Mummy.
Digger: Epic Flop or Misunderstood Satire?
The critical verdict has been savage: the film sits at around 51% on Rotten Tomatoes and 46 on Metacritic, with negative reviews from The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, Empire, Rolling Stone and IndieWire. Yet some defenders, including The Guardian, have argued it might be the “near-perfect climate change film for our era” — a provocative satire that audiences simply didn’t show up for.
Whatever history’s verdict, Goodman’s disappointment is plain. “Digger” was killed by critics “before we even opened,” he said — and for the cast that threw themselves into Iñárritu’s wild vision, that stings.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
