Entertainment

I\u00f1\u00e1rritu Wanted to Call Tom Cruise Film 'Blah, Blah, Blah'

Jonah VillalbaPublished 4d ago2 min readBased on 2 sources
I\u00f1\u00e1rritu Wanted to Call Tom Cruise Film 'Blah, Blah, Blah'
Photo by Limbo.asistente / CC BY-SA 4.0

Alejandro G. Iñárritu wanted to call his new Tom Cruise film Blah, Blah, Blah. The drama will instead arrive under the title Digger. It is scheduled to open in theatres on Friday, Oct. 2, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Sept. 30. The title story offers an early clue about what the director wanted to explore.

Digger is not a description of digging. It is a name. The title comes from Cruise's character, Digger Rockwell, an oil baron, which in plain terms means a wealthy and powerful businessman built on oil.

Blah, Blah, Blah sounded like a joke. Iñárritu meant it seriously. He said the phrase pointed to the tongue as a terrifying weapon that can change the perception of reality, The Hollywood Reporter reported. In other words, idle talk is not idle in this story. Words can reshape what people accept as true.

Iñárritu also gave credit to the companies paying for that idea. He praised Warner Bros. and Legendary as bold for backing Digger, saying they never hesitated and believed in its urgency, absurdity, humanity and nowness. For a general reader, that language matters because large studios rarely spend big sums on an original story that is not a sequel or part of a franchise.

The budget sits at $125 million. That is the estimated cost of production, before the separate bill for advertising and release. It places Digger firmly in big-studio territory, even without superheroes or spaceships.

The review count is in. At the time of reporting, Digger held a 53% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the website that collects critics' reviews into a score, across 113 reviews. Warner Bros. has answered with an online advertisement urging moviegoers to see the film and decide for yourself, The Hollywood Reporter reported. The message is simple. Skip the debate and buy a ticket.

For moviegoers, this means the argument starts before the opening credits. The film began as Blah, Blah, Blah and arrives as Digger, but both titles point to the same noisy centre: a man, and the talk around him.

Related Articles