Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Tries New Marketing Tactic: The French Love It, Americans Don’t

Warner Bros. rolled out a new ad for Digger that is trying yet another approach to market the tough-to-sell Alejandro G. Iñárritu film.

The online ad (below) shows a series of glowing quotes from critics from various countries and contrasts them with negative reviews from U.S. critics. The sort-of implication: The rest of the world loves this movie — it’s just dumb Americans who fail to appreciate its genius.

At the start of the ad, Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell says, “America has stood beside the world in its darkest of hours,” to which Riz Ahmed’s character shoots back, “Not anymore.”

Then comes the succession of critic quotes alongside a flag representing the critic’s country. The first is from a Mexican YouTuber who called the film “Epic, Extraordinary and Biting,” followed by a Playlist quote, along with an American flag, which called the film “Grotesque, Deliberately Tacky.” Later there’s a French critic who calls Digger “A Gem of Intelligence” followed by The New York Post calling it “An Unintentionally Bad Movie.” The ad concludes with Cruise’s character declaring, “You decide which!”

Digger is expected to gross only around $8 million at the domestic weekend box office, which is even lower than the studio’s meager $12-$15 million prediction, and certainly leagues lower than the film’s $125 million projected budget.

Is it actually true, however, that the international press likes Digger more than the American press? There may be a little truth to this. While Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 50 percent positive, French aggregation site AlloCiné currently gives the film an average press rating of 3.2 out of 5 across 30 reviews. The two metrics aren’t directly comparable, but the French score suggests a somewhat warmer critical reception. Several top critics in Britain and Australia were notably warm towards the film, though both countries, certainly, had dissenters as well.

The film’s CinemaScore in the U.S. — polled from moviegoers exiting the film on Friday — was a rather brutal C+.

Cruise took to social media on Saturday to express his pride and support of the film, writing, “Digger is officially in theaters and I am so honored to have had the opportunity to create this film alongside such talented artists. Thank you to the entire cast and crew for your dedication, hard work and joy. The experience was truly unforgettable and I’m so proud of what we created.”