Ben Affleck Defends ‘Digger’ and Warns Hollywood About What Happens When Studios Stop Taking Risks

Every awards season has at least one big-swing prestige movie that becomes an early cautionary tale. This fall, that film is ‘Digger’, the Alejandro G. Iñárritu satire that Warner Bros. hoped would be one of its standout adult-skewing releases of the year. Instead, it has become a punchline in box office coverage, and now Ben Affleck is defending it.

The film came with plenty of pedigree. It premiered as the Royal Film Performance in London’s Leicester Square on September 22 and opened in the US and UK on October 2. Tom Cruise leads a heavyweight ensemble that includes Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons.

That’s why Affleck’s comments have landed so loudly. Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in an episode released Monday, the actor-director pushed back on the pile-on around the film. He argued that treating its stumble like schoolyard bullying would only push studios toward safer, blander, more homogenized movies.

According to reports on the conversation, Affleck separated a film failing because audiences don’t know about it from a film people actively root against. He likened the second situation to high school bullying, where people make it clear they know exactly who you are and simply don’t like you.

Ben Affleck on Digger like high school bullying … you see it now with Digger a pretty ambitious interesting movie made by interesting people who have talent … if you punish movies that take risks … you’re gonna get a bunch of homogenized movies https://t.co/ZlvS5kiLHF

— delaney (@tweetyenergy) October 12, 2026

He was also frustrated with how much of the discussion around a movie comes down to its losses. In his view, the industry’s obsession with tallying what a film lost misses the bigger picture.

His central point was a warning. If Hollywood punishes movies that take risks, he argued, it will end up with a wave of homogenized films, and nobody can make something interesting without a big swing that sometimes makes them look bad.

‘Digger’ is a satirical black comedy, and an unusual one by studio standards. Cruise, under transformative makeup that leaves him nearly unrecognizable, plays oil magnate Digger Rockwell. He also plays Curtis Markson, the actor portraying Rockwell in a play called ‘Fossil Fools’.

Digg. Or Die. DIGGER. Only in theaters October 2. https://t.co/jDCOyl8bXU

— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) July 13, 2026

The story follows drilling in Alaska and Greenland that sets off an ecological disaster, before revealing itself as a stage play in rehearsal. Goodman plays the US President, and Stuhlbarg plays his Vice President.

Iñárritu wrote the screenplay with Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman. The story is credited to Berman, Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth, which makes it exactly the kind of auteur-driven, star-powered original that rarely gets a studio green light these days.

The money is where things get painful. Reported budget figures range from $125 million to $180 million, with Warner Bros. pegging the cost at the lower end. The film has earned only about $35 million worldwide.

TheWrap has projected the loss could reach around $250 million, which would put ‘Digger’ among the costliest bombs in recent memory. Reviews haven’t helped, with a 46 on Metacritic, a 53% Rotten Tomatoes score from more than 300 reviews, and a C+ CinemaScore from opening-night audiences.

Those mixed but not catastrophic reviews are part of why Affleck’s defense resonates with some observers. ‘Digger’ is not being written off as unwatchable; it is being treated as an expensive symbol of what happens when a studio bets on something strange.

Affleck’s comments carry extra weight because he is still a filmmaker looking for room to take swings. His latest directing effort, the R-rated thriller ‘Animals’, arrived on October 9 in select theaters and globally on Netflix. He directs, co-wrote, and stars in it alongside Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, and Steven Yeun.

That film came out of Artists Equity, the company Affleck co-founded with Matt Damon, which has a multi-year deal with Netflix. Affleck has built much of his recent career around backing creative risks, so a high-profile risk becoming a public whipping post clearly struck a nerve.

Whether ‘Digger’ gets a second life on streaming or in reappraisal years down the road, Affleck’s remarks have pushed the conversation beyond the box office. The question now is whether Hollywood takes his warning seriously or quietly retreats to safer bets.

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