How we lost our appetite for eat-the-rich satire
Tom Cruise’s latest film could lose $250m (£190m) – could one reason be that audiences are tired of Hollywood telling them what they already know about the super-rich? It seems as if nobody can decide who should shoulder most of the blame for the recent box office flop of Digger. Was it the ousted Warner Bros film executives Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, whose love of big-budget auteur cinema usually came with a hefty…
Key points
- Tom Cruise's film Digger could lose $250m during its cinema run.
- Audiences have grown tired of eat-the-rich satire in film and TV.
- Recent class-satire releases like Ready or Not 2 and Beef have flopped.
The recent box office failure of Tom Cruise's film Digger has sparked debate over who is to blame. Some point to ousted Warner Bros executives Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, while others blame the marketing team for hiding the movie's major twist from trailers.
The article argues the film's fate was sealed before release because audiences have grown tired of the eat-the-rich satire trend. This genre gained momentum after Parasite's success and the Covid pandemic's focus on wealth inequality, with titles like Glass Onion, Saltburn, Triangle of Sadness and The Menu, plus TV shows Succession and The White Lotus.
Recent flops in the genre
Digger is described as the most high-profile casualty of this trend, with reports predicting a $250m (£190m) loss during its cinema run. The article notes that divisive reviews and audience reactions are easy to blame, but audiences may have been exhausted by repeated cinematic reminders about wealth inequality.
This year, action-revenge films Ready or Not 2 and They Will Kill You, which pit lower-class protagonists against the super-rich, belly-flopped at the box office. Even arthouse films like Rosebush Pruning and I Love Boosters seem to have exhausted audiences, according to their receipts.
On television, the return of anthology series Beef failed to register, barely cracking Netflix's daily top 10 before disappearing. Later this week, Romain Gavras' Sacrifice debuts on Netflix with no fanfare, over a year after its festival premiere landed with a thud. Despite an A-list cast including Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy and John Malkovich, it took months to find a distributor.
Was it funny? No, but I agreed the fuck out of it
— Stewart Lee
Public anger versus pop culture fatigue
The article notes that public criticism of the super-wealthy is growing. A YouGov poll shows 75% of Britons support higher taxes on high earners, and 60% in the US. The world's richest man is widely disliked, and the real-estate mogul US president keeps hitting new approval lows.
Despite this, satirical movies about the wealthy are met with fatigue. The article suggests the main reason is exhaustion, as people get sharper, free satire online. It compares these films to a Stewart Lee routine about political satire, quoting him saying, "Was it funny? No, but I agreed the fuck out of it."
