Ben Affleck warns Hollywood after Tom Cruise's 'Digger' bombs

Ben Affleck has a warning for anyone celebrating Tom Cruise’s latest box office disaster: keep laughing, and Hollywood might stop taking risks altogether.

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast Monday, the Animals actor pushed back against the reaction to Digger, arguing that a movie’s commercial failure shouldn’t automatically make it a target for ridicule.

“It’s a little bit like the high-school bullying thing, with people who hadn’t even seen movies. You see it happening now, frankly, with Digger. Everybody wants to celebrate this bomb as if it’s the most exciting thing to happen, and you think like, it’s a pretty ambitious, interesting movie made by interesting people that have talent,” Affleck said.

His bigger concern? Studios becoming too afraid to experiment.

Read More: Tom Cruise addresses fans ‘disappointment' after ‘Digger' poor performance

“Everybody wants to count the money, what it lost or whatever. To me, I just think, like, if you punish movies that take risks, guess what you’re going to get? A bunch of shitty, homogenized movies,” he explained. 

“You cannot do something interesting without taking a big swing, and that means you’re going to sometimes look bad.”

The numbers haven't helped Digger’s reputation. The film reportedly opened with $8 million domestically and earned $12 million internationally, prompting plenty of debate about its expensive gamble.

Critics have been divided, too. The Hollywood Reporter critic David Rooney described the film as a story involving “two outsize egos” and called it a “heavy-handed cataclysm scenario.”

But Affleck isn't alone in defending the ambitious project. Anne Hathaway, whose Verity beat Digger at the box office during their opening weekends, gave it a glowing review on Letterboxd.

“I loved this brilliant movie. It’s smart and trippy and aggressive and funny and ambitious. It’s worth making the time see and decide for yourself what you make of it. For me? 10/10.”

So, is Digger a misunderstood risk or simply a box office flop? Affleck clearly believes audiences should watch before joining the pile-on.