Warner Bros has locked in a 2 October 2026 IMAX release for Digger, the audacious new satire from Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and the final trailer has landed to a wave of astonishment — chiefly because its star is almost impossible to recognise. Buried under a transformation that trades his familiar matinee-idol looks for something stranger and altogether more grotesque, Tom Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a fabulously wealthy oil tycoon convinced that he alone can save the world from a catastrophe of his own making.
Billed as a comedy-drama with an apocalyptic streak, the film follows what its logline calls the most powerful man in the world as he races to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything. For Cruise it marks a rare and startling swerve away from the blockbuster action that has defined the past decade of his career, and for Iñárritu — the director of Birdman, The Revenant and Bardo — it is a return to the mordant, formally daring filmmaking that first made his name. The pairing has been one of the most closely guarded projects in Hollywood, and the trailer's arrival has only sharpened the curiosity around it.
Cruise is surrounded by a formidable ensemble. Riz Ahmed appears as Ganesh, a scientist and presidential aide; John Goodman plays a dictatorial U.S. President; and Sandra Hüller, fresh from her acclaimed turns in Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, plays Digger's sister Emma Rockwell. The deep supporting cast also includes Michael Stuhlbarg as the Vice President, alongside Jesse Plemons, Emma D'Arcy, Sophie Wilde, Burn Gorman, Pip Torrens and Robert John Burke.
Shot for the giant IMAX format and arriving in the thick of awards season, Digger looks set to be one of autumn's most talked-about releases — a bold, unusual swing from a director and a star who rarely do anything by halves.
