Guillermo del Toro Defends Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger,’ Rips “Petty” Headline

The Oscar-winning Frankenstein and The Shape of Water director posted a couple of times over the last 24 hours advocating for the beleaguered Alejandro G. Iñárritu film, which has generated polarized (some scathing) reviews.

The director’s first message on the subject was reacting to a post from the entertainment news site IGN, which had written, “The theater experience won’t change your mind on Digger, and the laughs that are there still will be when it hits HBO Max.”

Del Toro shot back: “Entirely Petty headline. Love it or not. And, yes, I do. The film delivers in scale, ambition and reach at a theatrical screen level. Daring, bold and Cinematically complex. Decidedly a Theatrical experience.”

Then, reacting to a post about Ken Russell’s controversial 1971 film, The Devils, del Toro wrote, “I was a kid and I remember this film — released by [Warner Bros.] was [called by critics] ‘excessive, overbearing’ etc and, in my country, Mexico, we were told that the Church explicitly considered it blasphemy. And here we are … I LOVE it more than ever — because it is NOT about possession but what the political narrative does with it. Glad WB takes risks — even now…”

Continued the director, now directly referring to Digger: “BTW there is a ‘climate change’ movie in release that Is NOT about climate change but the manipulation of narratives — and yes it is released by WB (possibly the very last movie WB as such will ever release) and has been deemed ‘excessive, overbearing’ so see it in a theatre.”

Not too many are expected to see Digger in a theater this weekend, however, with the film eyeing a domestic opening that’s south of $15 million.

On the reviews front, the film currently sits at 54 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is higher at 65 percent (presumably, given all the hubbub in the press, those still going to see the film had at least some idea what they’re going into).

Iñárritu and del Toro have been friends for decades and regularly consult with one another on projects. The duo, along with Alfonso Cuarón, have been called Mexican cinema’s “Three Amigos.” In a profile on the trio’s friendship from The Los Angeles Times in 2006, Iñárritu said, “We share, we complain, we fight, we suggest. And then you support.”

Del Toro’s next film is The Buried Giant, a stop-motion animated adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2015 novel for Netflix.