Critics killed Tom Cruises Digger and clueless Hollywood is fighting back

Depending on who you ask, critics such as myself are either totally irrelevant relics of the past like almanacs or sundials — Hollywood’s dream scenario — or snarling Godzillas who go around crushing poor, innocent movies to death with relish.Well, it was clear which reality was true last weekend.After some scathing reviews, Tom Cruise’s “Digger” became the flop heard ‘round the world.Tom tanked so hard, his wreck is on track to be one of the biggest flops of all time. Much as I enjoy quoting myself, my favorite line actually came from my very reasonable pal David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter. “You watch in excruciating weariness as it disappears up its own ass and then realize to your dismay that there’s another eardrum-shattering hour left to endure,” wrote King Ghidorah, excuse me, David. After the critiques dropped, “Digger”’s domestic box office projections dove off a cliff like Agent Ethan Hunt: $20 million (dire to begin with) slipped to $15 million to its eventual sad, sad $8 million.

Even fellow failure “Masters of the Universe” opened to $29 million.Keep in mind that “Digger” — a message-heavy meta satire from the director of “Birdman” about an oil tycoon facing an environmental catastrophe — reportedly cost between $135 million and $180 million to make.That’s a staggering budget for what it is.

Less arthouse, more art-mansion.Even so, there is a palpable sense that Hollywood is shocked that critics would do this to Tom Cruise, who they tend to place nice with.They’re even more flabbergasted that our kvetching worked.

Cruise should be critic-proof, they figure.To them, in a just world, everything should be.These days Herculean efforts are taken to circumvent the honest opinions of professional reviewers. The stars go film cute videos making pizzas at the New York Times. They sit down on happy podcasts like “Good Hang with Amy Poehler” and “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” and chat for an hou...