Digger, Hollywood’s latest piece of pro-Global Warming, anti-Western civilization propaganda, opened worldwide to a brutal $28 million.
It’s one thing when we uncouth, simple-minded, unsophisticated, gun-loving, cheese-eating, Jesus-freak Americans reject a movie. But certainly the oh-so broad-minded, respectable progressive international audience will embrace a piece of auteur cinema that pretends Global Warming is real and shames Western Civilization for embracing the great gift of oil that fueled the Industrial Age, which, in turn, exponentially reduced world poverty
Certainly the foo foo Europeans will embrace this.
Of course the grossly exploited Third World will embrace this.
The world hates America. The movie hates America. We can’t lose, baby!
What was supposed to be the awards season heavyweight to finally get Tom Cruise to the Oscar podium has ended up as one of the biggest box office flops of the actor’s career. Worse, early indicators strongly suggest that Digger is on track to lose between $150-200 million. Those are John Carter numbers.
The movie, starring Tom Cruise as a powerful oil tycoon who has triggered an environmental disaster, made just $8 million in the US and $20 million globally in its opening weekend.
Get a load of this spin…
On top of Digger‘s huge budget, the trades report that Warner Bros. spent another $100m on marketing, which means that the movie needs to make $300m just to break even.
So Warner Bros. spent somewhere between $250 million and $280 million to produce and promote this stinkbomb, and even though theaters take 50 percent of the gross, we’re told it needs only $300 million to break even.
No, no, no, no, no, no…
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie…
A movie has to gross at least twice its overall budget to break even, which makes Digger’s break even at around $500 to $600 million. At this rate, Digger will not reach $100 million worldwide, which means it could lose up to $200 million.
Those are the facts.
That’s the math.
Who in the world was this movie made for? I can see grabbing a big star like Tom Cruise and dropping $40 million into Digger. Why not? Tons and tons of movies no one watches are made for $40 million. But who were the rocket scientists with their finger on the pulse of the people who thought it was a good idea to drop more than a quarter billion — with a “B” — dollars into a movie that could not even be made to look appealing in the advertising, in the trailer?
From the very start of the advertising campaign, Digger came off as ugly-looking, noisy, political, self-important, and way too amused with itself to appeal to anyone. Even Digger’s tiny group of defenders are left with, It’s not that bad, or It’s brilliant in parts, or I respect a filmmaker taking a wild swing like this.
Fine. Great. That’s still not enough to make anyone want to give up an entire evening and $20.