Who’d have thought that a movie made to promote climate change propaganda would flop at the box office?
This week’s wide releases are getting very tepid reception from critics and audiences, but their box office outlooks are very different as Amazon MGM’s Colleen Hoover adaptation “Verity” is set to turn at least a modest theatrical profit while Warner Bros./Legendary’s “Digger” looks fated to become one of the biggest busts of the year.
“Digger” carries a budget of at least $125 million, with some reports putting it at around $160 million. Either way, it’s a terrible start for the Alejandro Inarritu-directed satire with a domestic opening of $8 million and a global opening weekend of just $20 million, bringing an unceremonious end to Warner Bros.’ 103-year run as it merges with Paramount Skydance this week.
“Digger” has divided critics and audiences alike with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 51% critics and 70% audience, a C+ on CinemaScore and 47% “definite recommend” from PostTrak, the sort of scores that might be the makings of a cult film among cinephiles but are poison to a film’s efforts to attract the theatrical audience needed for a film of this budget level. And for Tom Cruise, who was pegged by awards prognosticators as a potential Oscar nominee, this is his worst opening weekend since the 2007 Robert Redford war drama “Lions for Lambs.”
As IndieWire points out, despite Digger being officially budgeted at $125 million (sources say $160–180 million), needs roughly $350 million at the box office to break even. Warner Bros., which backed it with Legendary, puts that figure at $300 million—implying a loss of $150 million or more. Theaters keep about half of ticket sales, and marketing cost tens of millions more.
Two years ago, the movie Twisters stirred controversy among mainstream media outlets for its lack of messaging on cimate change. As a result, Twisters did phenominally well.
This will be another hard lesson learned and, the motion picture industry needs to focus on making movies that audiences want and not what movie studios desire or be propaganda arms for the Left. Otherwise, two, three, many more Digger movies!
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay
