“Digger” director Alejandro González Iñárritu has admitted his Tom Cruise-led film “wasn’t perfect” after receiving scathing reviews and having a disastrous opening weekend at the box office.
“I think it’s definitely an unusual film. It’s a provocative film,” Iñárritu, 63, told the New York Times in an interview published Monday.
The filmmaker noted that he likes to “take risks” and prefers polarizing reactions to his projects rather than a “lukewarm reception.”
“That’s what a movie is for me: Let’s start the conversation,” he said. “My personal taste is films that try to tell me something in a different way.”
But Iñárritu admitted that other people had contrasting opinions about cinema.
“There are people who want more certainty in storytelling, and that’s good too,” he told the outlet. “It’s not like ice cream. So, yeah, we expected that, to be honest.”
The satirical comedy, directed by four-time Oscar winner Iñárritu, stars Cruise, 64, as a wealthy, eccentric oil tycoon who races to stop a massive global ecological disaster he caused.
The film, released Friday, has a 51% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score, for its part, stands at 71%.
The Post’s film critic Johnny Oleksinski gave the film zero stars out of four, calling it a “no-nonsense turd” that will “scare audiences away.”
Oleksinski also wrote that Iñárritu’s “pretentious story” causes viewers to “not take about 90% of the film seriously and walk away for long periods of time.”
The film, which cost $135 million (or more) to produce, also did not perform well in theaters, earning only $8 million domestically in its opening weekend. It was Cruise’s weakest opening weekend performance in the United States since his 2007 film “Lions for Lambs,” which opened to $6.7 million.
Page Six exclusively reported that Cruise’s Oscar chances have plummeted due to the scathing reviews.
“Tom is still loved, but I don’t think people want to see him in a big suit and makeup – they want to see him as the action hero,” one industry told us.
Cruise has never won an Oscar, although he received an honorary Oscar at the 16th Governors Awards last November.
Despite the negativity surrounding “Digger,” Cruise said he was “very proud” of the film in an Instagram post over the weekend.
“‘DIGGER’ is officially in theaters and I am so honored to have had the opportunity to create this film alongside such talented artists,” he wrote.
Cruise added: “The experience was truly unforgettable and I am very proud of what we created.”
“Digger” is in theaters now.
Gn entert
