Ben Affleck Slams “High-School Bullying” of ‘Digger’: “If You Punish Movies That Take Risks, You're Going to Get a Bunch of Sh*tty Homogenized Movies"

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'd gone 21 straight write-ups without mentioning "Digger." That streak ends today.

Say what you want about Ben Affleck, and his latest movie, but the man knows a thing or two about being a punching bag. So when he steps up to defend Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Digger" against the pile-on, it’s somewhat personal.

Appearing on Josh Horowitz's "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, Affleck took aim at the “gleeful” reaction to the film's collapse, both with critics and at the box office, comparing it to schoolyard bullying.

It's a little bit like the high school bullying thing. You see it happening now, frankly, with “Digger.” Everybody wants to celebrate this bomb as if it's the most exciting thing that happened and you think like, This is a pretty ambitious, interesting movie made by interesting people that have talent.

"Digger," Iñárritu's black comedy starring a Tom Cruise, opened October 2 to divisive reviews, some outright hateful ones at that, and has only grossed just over $35M worldwide. Projections have it losing around $250M by the end of its run, which would put it among the biggest bombs ever.

Affleck isn't interested in the numbers.

Everybody wants to count the money — what it lost or whatever," he said. "To me, I just think, if you punish movies that take risks, guess what you're going to get? A bunch of sh*tty homogenized movies.

His closing thought: "You cannot do something interesting without taking a big swing. That means you're going to sometimes look bad."

And of course, he's right (even if he just released his own “sh*tty homogenized movie” on Friday). You can dislike "Digger" — plenty of people do — and still recognize that an R-rated, star-driven auteur swing from a talented filmmaker is exactly the kind of movie we keep saying we want more of. Dancing on its grave sends a message to every studio exec weighing the next big risk, and that message is to not greenlight such a thing ever again.

Cruise and Iñárritu went for something. That should count for more than it turning into punchline. Oh, and one last thing: “Digger” is actually great.