Guillermo del Toro has waded into the Digger fight, and his argument matters more for its framing than for its passion. The director publicly pushed back against a headline that positioned Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Tom Cruise-led film as a streaming afterthought, saying it belongs on a big screen. The debate lands just as the first box-office numbers come into view.
What Del Toro actually said
The trigger was an IGN headline suggesting that seeing Digger in a theater would not change a viewer’s mind, and that its laughs would be waiting when the film hits HBO Max. Del Toro responded with “Entirely Petty headline,” then added that he loves the film and that it delivers scale, ambition and reach at a theatrical level.
He also linked Digger to Warner Bros.’ history with controversial works, pointing to Ken Russell’s The Devils. The 1971 film was attacked as excessive and, in his account, treated as blasphemy in Mexico; he says he still loves it. His point about the current film is that it is a climate change movie that is not about climate change but about the manipulation of narratives, and that it deserves a theatrical audience.
The scoreboard
- 54% — Rotten Tomatoes critic score, a polarized baseline.
- 65% — audience score, suggesting viewers are warmer than reviewers.
- Under $15 million — the projected domestic opening, a soft number for a wide release.
The critic-audience split is the most useful signal here. For entertainment marketers, a 65% audience score does not rescue a campaign, but it offers a different story: the problem may be critical framing rather than consumer rejection.
The theatrical-vs-streaming tension
Del Toro’s defense is not really about whether Digger is good; it is about whether a film with this scale can be marketed as an event before HBO Max. That is the central question for media planners. Every week a film carries a “theatrical experience” pitch, the clock is already running toward streaming availability.
The risk is that the campaign becomes a debate about format rather than about the film. When a director has to argue that a movie should not be waited out at home, the marketing has inherited a problem that paid media alone cannot solve.
Context from the Three Amigos
Del Toro and Iñárritu have consulted each other for decades, alongside Alfonso Cuarón as Mexican cinema’s “Three Amigos.” In a 2006 Los Angeles Times profile, Iñárritu described their relationship as one where they share, complain, fight, suggest and then support one another. That long history explains the public defense, even if it does not change the opening-weekend math.
Del Toro’s next film, The Buried Giant, is a stop-motion Netflix adaptation. His theatrical defense is also a quiet argument about where ambitious filmmaking should live.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
