Are Originals Movies Like Digger Doomed In The Future? : WG Highlight

Superbad Mike says, so the, and I'm not sure if you've been following up with us, Dylan. I guess I will update you on, have you been seeing anything about this Digger stuff?

I mean, just after I saw this in our notes, I had a little Googling of it, but I'd love if you'd fill me in because I'm sure the audience would appreciate that too.

So the movie cost about $ 160 to $ 180 million. And obviously, you know, and you read to big director, big cast, you got Tom Cruise. At one point it was projected to get around $ 20 to $ 25 million. I think due to reviews and a lot of other stuff, it only finished with about $ 8 billion this weekend. And it's going to be one of the biggest bombs of all time.

It's the biggest bomb in Tom Cruise's career. It's the worst opening in Tom Cruise's career. It's, I think, one of, if not the worst, scored fan-wise of his career. So a lot of bad stuff going on in this movie. And the previous Warner Brothers, now they're just Skydance still. And I guess Warner Brothers is still there, but that's the company. It's Skydance altogether.

You did a Travis Told You review of this movie, right?

I did, yes.

So everyone should go listen to that as well.

Yes, thank you. It's actually doing quite well. And yeah, it's polarized stuff. I gave it a four. April gave it a five. Matty gave it a two. I felt really bad because Matty DM'd me. Sorry, a four out of... Five, sorry.

Oh, okay. Sorry, I gave the letter back. Okay, I thought this was a failing grade thing for you.

No, but I felt bad. Matty, if you're listening, I felt bad because he personally messaged me like, oh, what about Digger? Like, should I see this? He asked me two questions, Dylan. He said, is it dog shit? And as crews give a great performance, I said, well, to me, I don't think it's dog shit. There's like a twist in the movie dome that like, it is like, uh, you either love or hate it. Like you're either in or out. You actually might enjoy the twist. And even someone, I was saying this, like Emily, she thought this movie looked awful and had no interest in seeing it. And then after the movie, when I told her twist, she was like, Oh, I might actually want to see it now.

We're Maddie on the other side. Um, I think he enjoyed some of it, but obviously the two out of, uh, uh, five didn't save him. So I felt bad, Maddie. So if I haven't apologized enough, I do apologize for that.

By the way, who has this on their draft? I feel like this was you. Didn't you have this on your draft?

No, I don't think so. I hope not.

Huh. Maybe I had it.

You want to fact check that? Yeah, I'll read Mike's question while you fact check that. But yeah, so Mike asked, so the epic box office disaster of Digger had me wondering about the often said line, why don't they make original movies anymore? Is it just a vap excuse made by hypocrites?

This is on my fucking list.

Is it on your list?

I have Mando Grogu. I got Digger.

I didn't know someone picked... I see why, because Tom Cruise, but... Oh, no.

The only good movies I have on my list are Mario and Odyssey, my number one and two. Everything else is just biting it.

Do you got anything else still coming out yet?

I got Wuthering Heights. That did fine. Social Reckoning. That's probably going to bomb.

I think it's going to bomb, yeah.

Street Fighter, that's going to bomb.

No, that might be.

Falker and Law, that'll be a billion dollar movie, so that's... That could be a big hit for you. Dog Stars probably came out and probably ate it, right?

It did, yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I'm going to say maybe made like under $ 25 million. Let me search it up here. Dog Stars is a movie. You took a lot of jumps. It made $ 39 million. So I was wrong. It made more than $ 25. So there you go. But anyway, so Mike was asking... Why don't they make original movies anymore? Is that just a vapid excuse made by hypocrites who really don't actually want to go to the theaters to see something new? I know I can be guilty of that. I suspect you might be too. Don't put that on me, Mike. Don't put that on me. Can we still really blame studios for pumping out sequels, remakes, adaptions for what seems more often that people just don't give... people gravitate towards? My God.

We could not... Oh, we could point to obsession as proof against it, but that seems to be a major exception to the rule or proof that the horror genre is just uniquely immune to this. Those are a few thoughts. Hope I can stir up a good conversation. So yeah, what do you think, Dylan? Because obviously, and I have some other things to pull up for stats that I haven't looked at them. I wanted to see of like the past since COVID, like what the top 10 has looked like. But I imagine when we look at that, it's probably just a lot of remakes, sequels, IP stuff, you know? So you have some like obsession that was huge.

You have Odyssey, which is, you know, based on something, but still I'd consider that, you know, a victory almost in the realm of something a little different. But yeah, what do you think about obviously Digger? I'm sorry, that's on your draft, but I mean like for Mike's question of, do you think that's why audience are just like, yeah, like why should we make this stuff when we go make this, which Digger is, I don't know if you'll ever see it, but it is a very, very unique movie, very unique vision and, Like I said, it has a big twist. It's like, okay, they're doing something different. But clearly, you even have Tom Cruise, massive movie star. People still go, eh, I don't want to give this a shot, you know?

Yeah, I was looking at the box office stuff for this year. So yeah, Obsessions at $ 10, 000. Back Rooms is at 11. I don't know if we're counting that as, like, that is an adaptation, I guess, technically.

It is, but I still put it in the original IP because, like, it's not built off 20 years or, like, 30 years of, like, sequels and movies, right?

And then 12 is Hoppers, which is, you know, a new IP to Pixar. But even then, that's, like, you know, a pretty sharp drop off there in terms of, like, that compared to, like, the billion-dollar movies. Not that that necessarily is what we're looking at in terms of success because, obviously, Obsession, half a billion, but still a huge success, obviously. big part of that is like the, the budget of the movie versus the actual box office run.

Did you start at nine because like, or did you start obsession? Cause op is all IP stuff then.

That's yeah. Cause I got project Hail Mary again, but that's a, that's, that's a seven, but that's a book adaptation. Michael, I don't know if you want to call it.

No, that doesn't count.

I mean the Odyssey again, but adaptation Odyssey is a weird one to me though, where yeah, it is an adaptation, but it does feel like kind of, Fresh and new, in a sense?

The only reason I put it in the original category is because I do think that has a lot to do with Nolan, because I think if Nolan's not directing that, that's not making that nowhere near that much.

Yeah, he's definitely got his own gravitational pull to him.

Yeah, and I think there's other stuff, too. When I say, like, oh, He-Man's dead, if they announce, hey, Nolan's doing He-Man, I'd go, okay, maybe this has a shot, right?

And then, honestly, when I look at the list, the only other kind of big, notable ones... none of them are really North American based things. So it's maybe harder for us to comment on the success of those and like how, how those come to be. Um, and they're like, this movie was huge in India. It was huge in China or things like that. Uh, which are of course valid, but kind of just different than I think what the question is going for here. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I don't know if I've ever heard anyone make that comment in real life. Like they don't make original movies anymore.

Uh, have you ever heard the, they don't make them like they used to in real life?

Yeah, I mean, people say that, but I don't know if that's what... I don't know if those are the same... No, no, no.

No, they're not the same. I was just curious if you.

They're not linked off the same tree.

Because I feel like I've heard that one more from the older crowd. Like, ah, they just don't make movies like they used to, which I think I've said. But yeah, I think the original movies for me is more like the film fan and the people that would be listening to this podcast maybe have said that, or know people that have said that, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously a really interesting... issue in terms of uh you know studios going putting putting all their money behind like known things or things that they think are guaranteed obviously that doesn't always work either you look at star wars this year which star wars is typically a big box office success but was not this year i mean it's still number 14 for the year but against again versus the budget it's not what you want to see or definitely a lot less than they anticipated from something like that and i assume that movie had like a massive marketing budget too uh i think it did i think it was i mean i had like the super bowl stuff and stuff too yeah imagine cost a lot of money but i don't know

it's like interesting like number six is devil's where where's product two which obviously is like not an original thing but it's like what was the sequel to the very original kind of novel concept and that kind of naturally happens too like we're talking about barbie at some point and that first one, again, it's like an adaptation, I guess, in a sense, but it's like a cool, unique, brand new, cool thing. And then obviously it does well. And now we're going to get a sequel. And now we look at the sequels like, oh, they don't make anything original anymore.

But it's like, well, I don't know. We're not far from it at this point. So there is definitely a difference between like, you know, Marvel movies pumping those out every, you know, multiple times a year versus, uh, other things that are maybe just kind of getting off the ground running. Like, you know, people loved, uh, k-pop demon hunters and i think in like five years we'll have that same we can make that same case against that where it's like oh my god there's like five of these like all these spin-offs and stuff and it's like it kind of takes away from what we liked about it in the first place possibly um that's just kind of how things go but i don't know i mean i think you know it's it's it's so interesting with obsession and odyssey

in general i feel like those are the two word of mouth movies for me this year when I'm talking to people in the street when I'm talking to friends and people like oh did you see this yeah see that it's those two movies like Spider-Man is number one movie of the year I don't think a single one of my friends or acquaintances or anyone that I've talked to in real life has like talked to me about Spider-Man but like Odyssey and Obsession are the ones that stand out to people again Odyssey as we've just talked about is kind of in a bit of a gray area there in terms of like is it an original brand new thing to Mike's question specifically But yeah, I don't know. I guess the way I look at it is I feel like a lot of these new IP riskier,

quote unquote riskier things, it's just a different paradigm now because now that streaming is so taken over, I feel like a lot of that stuff goes to streaming or like Netflix and things like that are putting the budgets behind those kind of things. So they have like a different... footprint they they have a different impression that they leave on movie goers or maybe not movie goers in this case because that implies going to a theater but movie watchers at home fans things like that and yeah i mean it also just uh the economy right like things are expensive and it's like if you're gonna if you're like someone like you as kids or even if you're just someone on your own uh going to see a movie like are you when the movies have become so

much more expensive and it's like gas is expensive to go to the movie theater if you want to get snacks that's more expensive all these things like do you want to put that into the risk of something that you don't know or you know another Marvel movie that you kind of know what you're gonna get you know you're gonna have like a good enough time and I think that is a calculus that a lot of people weigh.

And then something like Obsession and Odyssey, like Obsession like grew over time. I mean, I'm sure, I don't know what the opening box office weekend is, but it seemed like it was one of those things that just kept, like word of mouth was crazy for that. Odyssey again, Nolan has his own gravity. That's hard to quantify. I had a big opening and then it continued.

Obsessions like weekend two and three were bigger than its first weekend. So that was, that's a, that's that pure word of mouth movie, which can't happen, but you can't, manufacture those, right? Like, I know that happened after that in Backrooms where a lot of studios were starting to be like, okay, let's find some, like, Reddit, YouTube stuff.

It's like, you could try and hope that it eclipses it again, but you can't just... It's like the barbed wire thing, right? You can't produce that in a factory. It just kind of happens by circumstance, and then you just reap the rewards, you know?

And I think to Mike's point about, like, horror being kind of almost immune to this issue to some extent, I do feel like that partly is because horror movies... like or movies like this thrillers horrors whatever you want to call it like typically have like a much lower budget and so it's like success yeah like to what what means success is like a lot lower number obsession of course is huge by any standard regardless of genre but there's a lot of like smile i think there's another one that's probably like a very low budget and then like it did really.

Well yeah yeah even saw movies are like that right they make them super cheap that's why there's 10 and they're trying to reboot it again because they would make them for like 20 to 40 million and they'd make like 200 something it's like hey on to the next one because why wouldn't you right it's just you're constantly just getting that churn of like small like a small risk and then high reward you.

Know yeah yeah i don't know when you're talking to people what is your anecdotal uh evidence of this do you do you hear people on the street what's what's your equivalent.

Of that i hate it to say but i feel like this those three movies you brought up are the same ones that i hear talk about even my sister in scene obsession she's like oh i feel like i saw it Cause I just see it on Tik TOK all the time. Like it's always on Tik TOK doing stuff like, well, you should still watch the whole thing.

And she's like, Oh, maybe I'm like, Oh, you make me so mad. You make me so mad. But, uh, no, those are the three. Cause I, I remember it was, um, like two weeks ago we were doing like a work meeting and yeah, right. It was the end of August or, or end of like mid September. And the lady was like, we're just doing like, what are you doing at the weekend?

She can't, I'm going to take my kids to see Spiderman. It's like, this way has been out for like two and some months and whatnot. Right. But for them, it's still like a, Didn't get around to big movies. So I feel like those are the three. I'm trying to think if there's anything else, but I think those are them.

And yeah, I don't think in my personal life, I get the whole, they don't make original movies anymore. I think I get more of like what happened with Jennifer Lawrence or other people. And they go like, this person's in too much or in too much stuff. Like my sister, again, bad take for Mackenzie Snell had that about Zendaya. I'm like, I won't accept this take, but I could see where she's coming from. Like, well, it's this way than this way than this way. I think I hear them people tire on someone and, but never do I really hear that in these circles. Of course I do.

Right.

But Mike, I, and obviously you haven't listened to maybe every single piece of content that has happened, but I think even when I was doing trust told you back in the day when I used to call the show thought bubble, shout out to that show. I used to say that all the time that people would say that, but when you'd look at the box office, original movie, like it's not like how it was like the nineties and eighties, right. There'll be the odd IP. And then it's, it's filled with it now.

Right.

And, I think it's just like what Dylan said. It's people, money, especially now, spending a lot of money. So they're just going with tried and true of, hey, I generally like Spider-Man. I'm going to go there. I generally like Christopher Nolan. I'm going to go there. I generally like Toy Story movies.

I'm going to go with that. Because I think that's something with... When people that see a few movies a year, and now especially with them being expensive, I don't think there's anything worse for the general audience than going to see a movie for two and a half hours and just hating it. And if that's like your one movie for the four months, like, man... what a waste. And especially too, it's something like digger, like that's not going to be the water cooler talk, right? We're Spider-Man. You, there's a good shot. Someone else at work is going to see it or your friend's going to see it or whatever. So like that will come up, but like Tom Cruise's, you know, Oscar plays not going to come up.

So I think also like Dylan said, they're all in streaming. So I think they're out there and they're on YouTube and everything. I just, I think it is just, you do need to appropriately do the budget because that's what you have. You do have to hope for the obsessions. You can't replicate it, but you got to hope for, okay, this thing costs 750 K and then even if that would have made 10 million, that would have been a massive success story, right? Even that, uh, that Markiplier movie that he gave, I think he caught, I think he spent like 5 million, but it made like 50 million.

That's a massive success for a guy that's on YouTube. He funded it all himself like that. So I mean there, so I think it's always been that way for the, I think since we've been doing the podcast for the IPs and remake, and I don't think it's going to change at any point. And like you said, Mike, why should it change? It's the same way as like, like we talk about with all the physical disc and gaming stuff, right?

When they have these stats and like how many people play on physical, why would the companies like, oh, we're going to, sorry, we're going to go back to putting them on discs. I want people to have discs, but why would that when it's like a, such a small, like under, like I can't remember the big, I think it was Requiem recently when it came out, like the amount of physical sales. It was like, it was crazy.

Like it was, it was like, I think the single digit. So it's like, yeah, why, why would PlayStation do that? Cause it's people like me that's bought physical or even just like, as much as we talked about it, I hate when you have Marvel's Wolverine comes out, right? And in like a few days that outsells Death Stranding too.

And that's when you go to like PlayStation, Kojima and go, well, if they're just looking at it for money, I'm not talking about what I want, but for money, how do they justify giving Kojima all this money when it's like, well, Insomnia put out a game that most people think is just a fine superhero game that defeated Death Stranding's lifetime sales in like one week, like less than. So that's where it's just like, And for these companies too, it is tough. I'm not trying to look out for the billionaires.

I'm just saying it's tough as far as... Look at Warner Brothers. In the amount of time we've been doing this podcast, this is the second time they've been bought. That's because of obviously bad decisions, but also just some bad luck too. So it's like they can't always just blow money. And we think, oh, these multi-billion dollar corporations eventually catches up. And that's where they do have to be smart and think, okay, what do we do here?

What do we pick? And I think that's what I hope for is the smaller budgets. And for Mike, your point on horror films, I think the reason why they're a bit more immune is because I feel like that's still the franchise that you want to go see with friends or multiple people. You know, like I feel like that's a franchise where like rom-coms, I think you're either going like, you know, like I'll be stereotypical. I think it's usually probably girls going together or couples. And then if people are single, that's not happening. Superhero movies is highly driven by males. So it's like, okay, they're going to go with themselves or their significant other kids and whatnot.

And then you have action movies, but those are kind of on Netflix. Like Netflix and a lot of dramas are just streaming now. So people really don't go to that. But I think people still do like the, at a horror movie, the speakers are going to get really loud. You're going to jump and you're going to look around and have that awkward laughter sort of thing.

Right.

So that's why I think they're, they're unique in that way. Cause there's nothing better than like, Oh, well let's go see a scary movie where not many times. Like, Hey, you want to go see that new, you want to go see devil's product, bad examples, people that was hype. I mean like a movie that's like that, but not an IP sequel. It's like, oh, you want to go see that? But even then, who knows? Because every once in a while, nah, I guess I'm wrong. I was surprised that, you know what that Verity movie is that came out this weekend, that Anne Hathaway one?

Yes.

Yeah. But I forgot that's based on a very famous author, Colleen Huther, who's just like putting out books and movies and they're doing all really well, right? So again, kind of an IP. So I think horror just has that where, like you'll mention the success rate because the budget, but also just with people. I think people always kind of want to, get scared and see something in a communal experience like that. Because even then, like, I feel like that used to be comedies, but that's even gone away.

So many comedies are on streaming and when's the last comedy that was like a massive hit? Maybe Anyone But You? And that was still rom-com. But like, I remember seeing Hangover 1.

Naked Gun did like pretty well, but it was like a hundred something million.

Yeah, right? Like, there's no like, I'm trying to think of like a massive hit, right? And like I said, I remember seeing Hangover like one and two and just like full theaters, people laughing their ass off. I don't know when I'll ever be able to see a comedy again that's a full theater. I think people have the theory that Marvel kind of killed comedies because you kind of get like... that it's scratched there, right? With a lot of the quips and the jokes, but, um, yeah, it's, I can't say, I think the studios just have to make those movies still, but just at a, at a lower budget, obviously with Tom Cruise and then you read to, it was harder maybe to get there, but, um, I think that's what you have to do. And which sucks.

Cause I got, I'm very happy that Digger is this, and they did give it this big budget. And I think they use it for the most part, but then if you don't get the returns, how can you, yeah. how can you justify it, you know?

Yeah, we've talked about that too recently, how like the idea of like the movie star, like that thing has kind of faded away too, where there's just, you have someone like Gosling who feels like he's on top of the world, and then you have that stunt man movie.

Fall Guy.

Fall Guy, which I love that movie, and then just like kind of bombs, doesn't really do well. And yeah, I feel like Tom Cruise is kind of maybe in that phase here, and it's too bad.

He was the last one.

Yeah, he was like taking a swing here with something kind of crazy and different, and now it's like, Okay, does this mean he's just going to go back and do generic action movies? I don't watch these things, so maybe I shouldn't call them generic. But action, classic Tom Cruise-y action movies again for the rest of his days.

I looked it up on Digger. Since 2014, Dylan, he's done nothing but action movies. Other than Top Gun, but even Top Gun to me is an action movie. It was like Mission Impossible, Jack... It's him with a gun. So he's been doing action stuff for a while now, which is what people want to see him in. And that's the thing, too. Is that just it, though? Is it that this audience for 12 years has grown up or seen him in this stuff? so when he goes and does a dicker they go like i don't really want that you know it's the same thing as uh rock with smashing machine right like i really like his performance i think the movie's good but that movie bombed too because it's like do people look at the way in rance and they go i don't really want to

see him play like a serious mma fighter i want to see him like making cheesy one line or anybody, but even then you would think, okay, so he does that with Moana. He goes, he literally plays this iconic like role for him. And then that bombs, that's a little more difficult because I think it's just live action.

Disney's are very hit or miss, but still with him, I always wonder, like, I wonder what his team thinks right now. Cause you've got the serious role and that kind of bombed. And then you have the, the like back to the formula of the family and him being charismatic and that bomb too. Right. So, And do you think that's what it is with Cruise? That it's just like, hey, they don't like them doing this? Or do you think it's just a case of maybe the audience is age-ally?

The people that would go buy a Tom Cruise ticket.

Didn't the most recent Mission Impossible also eat it?

They underwhelmed. They underwhelmed. They also had a very big budget because they did a lot of COVID restrictions. So they bought a boat and they had everyone stay on the boat to stay isolated. Yeah, that's where there's that famous clip of Cruise losing on somebody because they like took their mask off where they weren't supposed to. And he was like, I'm spending millions of dollars and stuff.

But, um, yeah, they, they did underwhelm. I, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, that's definitely possibly, yeah, that is possibly part of it. It's, I mean, again, Top Gun was also, obviously there's like a sequel, but that was like a miracle, right? That, that was as big as it was.

I agree. I, I would have never thought that the sequel from the 80s, like, I know people that like Top Gun, but I didn't think it was one of those that people were like, I gotta see. I can't wait for Top Gun 2.

There's something to the social media effect, obviously, and that's such a big thing right now. You're talking about your sister. I've seen Obsession because I've seen it on TikTok. For most people, though, that actually told them or converted them to actually go see the movie. That's such a big part of it, too. I think Digger as a concept, the marketing of it, it's harder to pitch that as an event, something you need to go to, or it's like obsession. Like everyone wanted to be in the conversation on that. Odyssey. I've never heard anyone in recent years talk, told me anything about an IMAX, but everyone's like, Oh, you see an IMAX? Like they're talking about all this stuff.

A hundred percent.

Like they, they care about that stuff suddenly because it's like, that's what everyone else is talking about on social media. It's like a, it's a big part of all, all these things, right. It's like the, the social media aspect of it, the, the social aspect, people wanting to be in on things. And yeah, it's like harder for a movie like Digger, I think to, kind of take over in that way I'm trying to think of like the weirdest movie we've seen like have a huge box office run recently that just doesn't really happen right like Obsession isn't really like a weird movie like it's a pretty kind of straightforward scary scary thing right yeah and.

Even then like it is horror like, but even back rooms is, I think, I think technically back rooms is more weirder than obsession, but.

It's still like, I feel like it has like the cult cult following to it. And I think obsession just, uh, I mean, even that, that first trailer was like, it's a great hook, right? It's just a great, simple concept. And digger is like, it's, it takes you a few sentences to explain why it is a hook, you know?

And I think that sometimes people don't have like that attention span, uh, to stick around. Cause I, I think, I also think that your looks cool, but I, did not care at all to go to the theaters for it.

I'll just see it later. And that's the thing too, Dylan, if you ever see it at some point, when you find out what the movie actually is, you're like, oh man, I don't know how they could have marketed this. If they marketed it, it would have given a lot away, which they didn't want to. But now I said to Emily, I'm like, I wonder if they should have marketed it like that. It would have gave away a big twist, but it might have been better. But you never know.

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Are Originals Movies Like Digger Doomed In The Future? : WG Highlight

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