{"id":618522,"date":"2026-10-02T14:32:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618522\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T14:32:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:32:05","slug":"guillermo-del-toro-defends-tom-cruises-digger-against-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618522\/","title":{"rendered":"Guillermo del Toro Defends Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Against Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDigger<\/a> has found a big defender in Guillermo del Toro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu film, which has generated polarized (some scathing<\/a>) reviews. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe director\u2019s first message on the subject was reacting to a post from the entertainment news site IGN, which had written, \u201cThe theater experience won\u2019t change your mind on Digger, and the laughs that are there still will be when it hits HBO Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDel Toro shot back<\/a>: \u201cEntirely 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen, reacting to a post about Ken Russell\u2019s controversial 1971 film, The Devils, del Toro wrote, \u201cI was a kid and I remember this film \u2014 released by [Warner Bros.] was [called by critics] \u2018excessive, overbearing\u2019 etc and, in my country, Mexico, we were told that the Church explicitly considered it blasphemy. And here we are \u2026 I LOVE it more than ever \u2014 because it is NOT about possession but what the political narrative does with it. Glad WB takes risks \u2014 even now\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tContinued the director, now directly referring to Digger: \u201cBTW there is a \u2018climate change\u2019 movie in release that Is NOT about climate change but the manipulation of narratives \u2014 and yes it is released by WB (possibly the very last movie WB as such will ever release) and has been deemed \u2018excessive, overbearing\u2019 so see it in a theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNot too many are expected to see Digger in a theater this weekend, however, with the film eyeing a domestic opening<\/a> that\u2019s south of $15 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn 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\u2019re going into). <\/p>\n

\n\tI\u00f1\u00e1rritu and del Toro have been friends for decades and regularly consult with one another on projects. The duo, along with Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, have been called Mexican cinema\u2019s \u201cThree Amigos.\u201d In a profile on the trio\u2019s friendship from The Los Angeles Times<\/a> in 2006, I\u00f1\u00e1rritu said, \u201cWe share, we complain, we fight, we suggest. And then you support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDel Toro\u2019s next film is The Buried Giant, a stop-motion animated adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s 2015 novel for Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Digger has found a big defender in Guillermo del Toro. The Oscar-winning Frankenstein and The Shape of Water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,6374,156,13270,111,139,69,7629],"class_list":["post-618522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-digger","tag-entertainment","tag-guillermo-del-toro","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tom-cruise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}