Digger is one of the most unexpected collaborations of the decade, pairing global superstar Tom Cruise with four-time Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the visionary filmmaker behind Birdman and The Revenant. Described by its creators as a “comedy of catastrophic proportions,” the film marks a rare move for Cruise, who plays Digger Rockwell, “the most powerful man in the world,” a larger-than-life figure racing to convince humanity that he is its saviour before a disaster he has unleashed destroys everything. The film features a remarkable ensemble cast alongside Cruise, including Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, Michael Stuhlbarg and John Goodman, bringing together one of the most eclectic line-ups of performers in recent years.
The project is especially intriguing because comedy is something audiences rarely see from Tom Cruise. While he has dominated the box office in recent years with action juggernauts like Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible series, his last widely recognised full-on comedic performance was the scene-stealing studio executive Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder (2008)—a role so outrageous it became instantly iconic. Now, under Iñárritu’s direction, Cruise returns to comedy in a much darker and stranger form. Digger is the Mexican director’s first English-language film since The Revenant (2015) and was shot on 35mm film with legendary cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, the three-time Oscar winner known for Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant. With a reported budget of around $125 million, the film represents a bold, auteur-driven studio project—mixing biting satire, star power and one of Hollywood’s most ambitious filmmakers in what could become one of the most talked-about releases of the year.