Key Takeaways
- Tom Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a pot-bellied Southern oil billionaire, in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s new dark comedy “Digger.”
- It’s Cruise’s first full character-actor transformation since he put on the fat suit for Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.
- Digger hits theaters and IMAX on October 2, and I already know I’m buying a ticket opening weekend.
Jump to:
- Tom Cruise Looks Nothing Like Tom Cruise
- What Digger Is Actually About
- Iñárritu Waited Seven Years For This
- Frequently Asked Questions
I did not expect to spend my Tuesday watching Tom Cruise scream at an iceberg with a bad combover and a pot belly, but here we are, and I’m not mad about it.
The official trailer for “Digger” dropped this week and it’s easily the strangest thing Cruise has attached his name to in years. That’s exactly why I can’t stop thinking about it.
Tom Cruise Looks Nothing Like Tom Cruise
Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a Southern energy billionaire with thinning white hair, a bad comb-over, and a gut he clearly did not train for. This is the guy who does his own HALO jumps and hangs off airplanes for fun, and he chose to bury all of that under prosthetics for this role instead.
The last time Cruise went full character actor like this was Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, and that performance is still one of the funniest things he’s ever done. If Digger Rockwell is even half as committed, this is going to be special. Cruise has said he wanted something that would genuinely challenge him, and by the look of this trailer, he found it.
What Digger Is Actually About
Here’s the setup. Digger Rockwell is “the most powerful man in the world,” a billionaire whose energy company may have triggered an ecological disaster serious enough to spark a nuclear war and wipe out something like $18 trillion. The sitting president, played by John Goodman, orders him to go fix the mess he made.
That’s about as absurd a premise as you can build a movie around, and I mean that as a compliment. Variety is calling it an absurdist comedy, and honestly that tracks with everything in the footage. It’s not trying to be a straight political satire. It’s something weirder and darker, and I like that Warner Bros. isn’t smoothing out the edges in the marketing.
Iñárritu Waited Seven Years For This
Alejandro G. Iñárritu came up with the idea for Digger right after winning back to back Best Director Oscars for Birdman and The Revenant, then spent years developing it before he actually approached Cruise about seven years ago. That’s a long runway for one movie, and it tells me this wasn’t some quick cash grab pitch. Iñárritu clearly had a very specific version of this story in his head and was willing to wait until it was right.
Deadline’s breakdown of the trailer backs this up, noting how deliberately the marketing is keeping some of the weirder plot turns under wraps. Pairing a director who pushes actors into deeply uncomfortable territory with an actor who’s built his whole career on control is exactly the kind of creative tension I want to see play out on a big screen. If you liked how “The Dune: Part Three” trailer broke me a little a few weeks back, this one’s going to do something similar.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Digger about?
Tom Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an eccentric energy billionaire whose company may have triggered a disaster serious enough to risk nuclear war. The sitting U.S. president, played by John Goodman, sends him to fix it.
Who directed Digger?
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the two-time consecutive Best Director Oscar winner for Birdman and The Revenant, wrote and directed the film.
When does Digger come out?
Digger releases in theaters and IMAX across North America on October 2, 2026.
Is Digger a comedy or a drama?
It’s being described as an absurdist dark comedy, blending satire with the kind of tonal ambition Iñárritu is known for, so expect something stranger than a typical studio comedy.
