"Digger" Flops, Three Amigos Defend Inarritu

The Hollywood Reporter reports that as Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Digger" entered a box-office death spiral, longtime friends Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron came to his defense.

Del Toro criticized an IGN post that suggested waiting to stream the Tom Cruise film, calling it "entirely petty." He praised "Digger" for its ambition and theatrical scale. Cuaron posted old critical pans of films like "Blade Runner" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" that later gained acclaim.

The three Mexican directors, known as the "Three Amigos," have been each other's private critics and advisers for nearly three decades. They first connected in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with Inarritu meeting Cuaron in the mid-1990s. Their collaboration solidified around Inarritu's 2000 debut "Amores Perros," when del Toro called it a masterpiece but too long and argued over the edit.

They later formed Cha Cha Cha Films in 2007 and produced a string of hits: "Birdman" ($18 million budget, over $100 million worldwide), "The Shape of Water" (under $20 million, nearly $200 million), "Gravity" ($100 million-plus budget, roughly $700 million), and "The Revenant" ($135 million, over $530 million). Between 2014 and 2019, Cuaron, Inarritu, and del Toro won five of six directing Oscars.

Now "Digger" has become Inarritu's first Hollywood studio film since "The Revenant." He spent ten years developing it with playwright Sabina Berman, and it finally got the green light with Cruise attached and a massive budget. But the gamble didn't pay off.

What it means

The Hollywood Reporter notes that the failure comes a year after Bong Joon Ho's "Mickey 17" also struggled despite a $100 million-plus budget. With Warner Bros. being subsumed by Paramount, this may be the last nine-figure bet on an Oscar-winning auteur for a while.

• Alejandro G. Iñárritu
• Alfonso Cuaron
• box office flop
• Digger
• Guillermo del Toro
• Three Amigos
• Tom Cruise