This should be a terrible, horrible, no-good weekend for the Last Movie Star.
Tom Cruise ditched his Hollywood action chops, buried himself in prosthetics and risked his box office clout with "Digger." The black satire casts him as a good, ol' boy oil tycoon who accidentally sparks an ecological disaster.
Speaking of disasters, "Digger" brought in a ghastly $8 million at U.S. movie theaters this weekend, and the international receipts weren't much help.
Yikes.
What's a global superstar to do? If you're Cruise, you put on your big boy pants and show gratitude for the chance to take such a gargantuan swing in theaters.
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.
Does that reflect what Cruise is actually feeling right about now? Not bloody likely.
The film's box office future is extremely dim. The feeble rollout could impact its Oscar chances, too. Not all Academy Award-winning films make big bucks, but ... it never hurts to draw a crowd. Plus, reviews for "Digger" have been mixed to disastrous, hardly the reception for an award season release.
Yet Cruise took the high road. That shouldn't surprise us, but other artists have done the opposite in recent years.
Disney+'s "The Acolyte" also crashed and burned upon its 2024 release. The show inexplicably drew mostly warm reviews, but the ratings weren't commensurate. YouTubers feasted on the show's woke trappings, using its flaws to boost audience engagement.
And they were right. The show was a dud.
That didn't stop the lead actress and showrunner from attacking fans for not watching "The Acolyte" en masse. Here's show creator Leslye Headland savaging her critics.
There are some of them that I respect, and there are some of them that I think are absolutely snake oil salesmen, just opportunists. Then, of course, there are the fascists and racists.
Star Amandla Stenberg also blasted some viewers using similar language.
There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.
A key player from "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" also berated audiences for causing the show's swift cancellation. Robert Picardo, recreating his hologram doctor character from "Voyager" on the new show, personally attacked critics for disliking the program.
These toxic reactions make Cruise's comments all the more remarkable. He could have said nothing or even lashed out at the film's poor reception.
Instead, he proved once again why he's one of the final movie stars in La La Land. Now, if he could only avoid clunkers like "Digger."
