Tom Cruise has disappeared entirely into a role. The first trailer for Digger, the new black comedy from Alejandro González Iñárritu, reveals a Cruise almost unrecognisable behind thick prosthetics — a pot belly, thinning white hair arranged in an unconvincing combover, and a heavy Southern accent — playing Digger Rockwell, a billionaire whose company has potentially triggered both an ecological catastrophe and a nuclear crisis. The film opens October 2nd.
Described by Warner Bros. as “a comedy of catastrophic proportions,” Digger is Iñárritu’s first English-language film since The Revenant and his first collaboration with Cruise, despite the two having been mutual admirers for more than two decades. The film follows Digger as he races to prove himself humanity’s saviour before the disaster he caused destroys everything — a task made more urgent by the fact that he seems far more preoccupied with the health of his ancient white cat than with the fate of the glaciers he may have destabilised.
The trailer introduces John Goodman as an ailing US president demanding that Digger clean up the mess he has made, while the ensemble cast also includes Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde, and Emma D’Arcy. The film was shot over six months in the UK with Iñárritu’s longtime cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki using VistaVision.
How Cruise and Iñárritu Finally Got Here
Cruise said his admiration for Iñárritu dates to 2000, when he saw an early screening of Amores Perros. “What a brilliant film. It was amazing. I don’t know how you all felt, but I was like, ‘What the fuck? This guy!'” he told the audience at a special preview screening on the Warner Bros. lot in Los Angeles, where he presented the trailer ahead of its public release. For years, Cruise showed the film to friends as an informal endorsement of the director’s talent. They met eventually, but it took years longer to find the right project.
About seven years ago, Iñárritu pitched Cruise the idea for Digger in person — reading the script aloud to his potential star over several days rather than mailing over a finished screenplay. “I’m listening to everything that’s in his mind, so that I can understand that, and then I know how to contribute to it, and bring that collaboration together,” Cruise recalled. “It was beautiful.”
The script, which Iñárritu co-wrote with Nicolas Giacobone and Alexander Dinelaris — his Birdman collaborators — and Sabina Berman, had been in development for a decade. Iñárritu described it in a video message shown at the event: “It took me 10 years to do this film, because I wasn’t looking for a story. I was looking for the right way of saying it.” On the casting: “People often ask me why I chose Tom to play Digger. To me, that’s like asking somebody why you drink water when you are thirsty. Because it’s what you need.”
Cruise connected deeply with the physical transformation the role required. Drawing comparisons to Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder and his work across Collateral, Interview with the Vampire, and Risky Business, he described his consistent approach: “I’m always asking, ‘How do I communicate this?’ The physicality, the makeup — that is stuff that you find.”
Digger is Cruise’s first film with Warner Bros. since Edge of Tomorrow in 2014, following a deal he signed with the studio in January 2024 to develop and produce theatrical films. It arrives after Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the conclusion of his run as Ethan Hunt.
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