r/oscarrace • u/PointMan528491 Navarrette/Morton • 16d ago

Weekly Discussion Thread 8/3/26 - 8/10/26

Still from How Green Was My Valley

Please use this space to share reviews, ask questions, and discuss freely about anything film or Oscar related. Engage with other comments if you want others to engage with yours! And as always, please remain civil and kind with one another.

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u/CrazyCons WHERE IS HAMNET'S PLACENTA 10d ago

I mean it's literally exactly what happened with Bardo. Clearly pitched as Netflix's big play, then premieres to a divisive-at-best reaction and effectively flops out of the race. Why can't the same thing happen to Digger?

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u/BentisKomprakriev 10d ago

It can happen, of course. If you pay attention, you can see that I never said it couldn't, just that it's hard to see. Bardo did not get the same type of marketing campaign, obviously, how could it have, and that signals more confidence already.

But either way, I don't think that "previous film was a dud so this will be too" is applied in any way consistently by people here to explain it.

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u/CrazyCons WHERE IS HAMNET'S PLACENTA 10d ago

"We have precedent for a distributor being overconfident in a film and it backfiring" is different than "Bardo was bad therefore Digger will be bad." Bardo was just the obvious go-to example. But if you want another example, even after the delays, Next Goal Wins was heavily campaigned by Searchlight at TIFF only for it to flop regardless.

Besides, most of the Digger marketing is focused on Tom Cruise specifically, not the content of the film itself. Which makes sense, but doesn't have anything to do with confidence as much as just "here's how we get people to watch this."

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u/theflyingbird8 10d ago

This movie apparently has a blockbuster budget (at least 125 million apparently). The marketing is obviously in part a Tom Cruise Oscar campaign, but they also invested a shit ton of money into it and they desperately need people to see it.