“Digger” Trailer: Tom Cruise Goes Big as a Texas Billionaire Who May Have Accidentally Doomed the Planet in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Apocalyptic Political Satire — Coming to Theaters October 2nd
🎥 Tom Cruise trades death-defying stunts for old-age makeup and billionaire-sized ego in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s apocalyptic political satire.
Ask any working actor in Hollywood how to make it in this business, and most will tell you the same thing: perseverance is the name of the game. Every career, no matter how successful, has its share of highs and inevitable lows. The trick is to have more ups than downs, and perhaps make it to the finish line with your passion and reputation still intact.
Tom Cruise, believe it or not, just turned 64 this month. After nearly 45 years in the business, he has experienced his fair share of highs and lows, moving through different stages of fame, reinvention, and public scrutiny while somehow remaining one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Certainly, after the massive success of Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise cemented his status as one of the last legitimate movie stars we have left.
But one thing has continued to elude him: a competitive Academy Award for acting. Sure, he received an Honorary Oscar late last year for his overall contributions to cinema, but the acting trophy itself remains just beyond his fingertips, despite coming close three times over the course of his career.
In recent years, some critics have argued that Cruise has relied more on his physicality and death-defying stunt work than on stretching himself as a dramatic actor. We can’t entirely dismiss those criticisms, but anyone who has followed Cruise’s career (or grown up watching his films) knows Cruise has always been capable of far more than blockbuster thrills. And no matter how you feel about him as a person or public figure, one thing is certain: the guy has always been hungry to give audiences their money’s worth.
Well, Cruise is coming back this fall with what looks like one of his most ambitious roles yet. It’s a deadpan satire that buries him beneath heavy old-age makeup and lets him act with the brakes completely off. And it might just be the performance that not only finally earns him that elusive acting Oscar but also silences his critics once and for all.
Sure, we can all agree that over the last decade or so, Cruise has leaned too heavily on his action-star persona, starring in a string of Mission: Impossible films with great success but little room to remind audiences what a daring actor he once was... and can still be.
Fingers crossed, Cruise’s turn in the upcoming Digger, playing an aging, arrogant Texas tycoon whose wealth has inflated his ego to the size of the state itself, marks the beginning of a bold new chapter in his career. First impressions suggest it taps into the same energy he brought to Tropic Thunder, where he was nearly unrecognizable as Les Grossman, the bald, foul-mouthed studio head who could scream just as well as he could dance. That performance, if memory serves, shocked audiences and critics alike by revealing just how funny Cruise could be when given the space to completely let go. And let go he did.
Digger, the latest film from Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, best known for Birdman and The Revenant, takes Cruise off cruise control and perhaps gives him the chance to either reclaim his edge or reinvent himself all over again.
Here, Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a powerful and eccentric billionaire who pours millions into an ecological digging venture in Greenland, only to discover that he may have triggered a man-made global disaster capable of destroying the planet and leaving American taxpayers with a multitrillion-dollar cleanup bill.
Worse yet, the President of the United States (played by John Goodman as a man of spectacular incompetence) believes there is only one person capable of cleaning up the mess: Digger himself.
“Digger here got us into this mess...
and Digger’s gonna dig us out again.”
Obviously, there are major Dr. Strangelove vibes here. Stanley Kubrick’s film remains a landmark of 1960s political satire, turning the absurdity of the Cold War into something both hilarious and terrifying. Iñárritu appears to be aiming for a similar balancing act, tapping into how political power and corporate wealth have become aligned to an almost incestuous degree. We suspect the film will take plenty of jabs at the idea that the people in power are often the same ones who put the rest of us in grave danger. And yet, somehow, we keep electing those same people to get us out of the mess they helped create. Damn. We don’t know if we should laugh... or cry. Hmm.
Joining Cruise and Goodman is a stacked ensemble that includes Riz Ahmed as the President’s assistant, alongside Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, Robert John Burke, and Burn Gorman.
With a screenplay co-written by Iñárritu, alongside Birdman scribes Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone and Mexican writer Sabina Berman (Backyard), the filmmaker is once again collaborating with his frequent cameraman, Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant, Birdman). Together, they appear to be using ultra-wide lenses and low-angle compositions to make everything feel deeply off-kilter. Paired with exquisitely detailed production design, the imagery feels distinctly Kubrickian.
Digger just might be the comedy that reminds audiences what Cruise can do when he stops running and starts taking real risks again. The film is coming to theaters and IMAX on October 2nd.
Official Synopsis:
Academy Award winner Tom Cruise stars in Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s original film “Digger,” from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.
The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.
Cruise stars in the title role, alongside Oscar winner Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons. Robert John Burke, Emma D’Arcy, Burn Gorman and Sophie Wilde also star.
Iñárritu directed from a screenplay by Iñárritu & Oscar-winners Alexander Dinelaris & Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, story by Iñárritu & Berman. The film is produced by Iñárritu, Oscar nominee Mary Parent, Cruise and Michael Sharp, and executive produced by Joshua Grode, Berman, Dinelaris, Giacobone, Jez Butterworth and Emmanuel Lubezki.
Joining Iñárritu behind the camera are previous collaborators Oscar-winning director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki; editors Conor O’Neill and Oscar winner Stephen Mirrone; Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West; Oscar-winning makeup and hair designer Alessandro Bertolazzi; and Oscar-nominated casting director Francine Maisler; along with Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner and production designer Richard Johnson, Oscar-winning prosthetic makeup designer Kazu Hiro, and composer Cosmo Sheldrake.
An Alejandro G. Iñárritu Film, “Digger” was shot entirely in VistaVision and will be released in theaters and IMAX® across North America on October 2, 2026, and internationally beginning 30 September 2026. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.