This article has been updated to include the official Digger teaser, character posters, and confirmed October 2026 release date.
While Tom Cruise has spent most of the last few decades sprinting across the screen and hanging off planes without breaking a sweat, the 63-year-old actor is looking to return to more serious roles now that the Mission Impossible franchise has concluded. The official teaser for Digger is now online, Warner Bros. has locked in an October 2026 theatrical release, and a full-length trailer is set to debut on July 13. The studio also dropped a set of character posters — and Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell is in full unhinged mode.
And to prove just how serious he is about leaving Ethan Hunt behind, Cruise plays a balding Texas oil tycoon with a beer gut and a bad comb-over in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger, a satirical black comedy. His new look is closer to Les Grossman after a three-day bourbon binge and a board meeting gone horribly wrong.
We know just how much Oscar judges love transformations. There’s an unspoken formula in Hollywood: take a handsome or beautiful actor and make them completely unrecognizable with makeup and prosthetics. It almost guarantees victory, or at least a nomination for the effort. Just look at Charlize Theron and Monster, Gary Oldman and Darkest Hour, Brendan Fraser and The Whale, Christian Bale and Vice. And that’s not even half the list.
The teaser (which only has about 20 seconds of actual footage from the new film, with the rest being a montage of other Tom Cruise movies) reveals Cruise as Digger Rockwell in all his sweaty Southern glory. With his thin white hair and a puffy face, he’s almost impossible to recognize. At one point he appears completely rattled after hearing about a Greenland ice sheet leak that threatens to spiral into worldwide catastrophe. The Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” plays in the background. The teaser had briefly leaked following its Top Gun / Top Gun: Maverick theatrical re-release before Warner Bros. swiftly pulled it — it’s now officially live.
The film follows Rockwell, described as the most powerful CEO on Earth, after his drilling operation triggers an environmental disaster that could eventually push the world toward nuclear war. John Goodman plays an ailing U.S. President demanding Digger clean up the mess before millions die — and he’s reportedly a scene-stealer who could finally land a much-deserved first Oscar nomination. The wider ensemble includes Riz Ahmed, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sandra Hüller, Sophie Wilde, and Emma D’Arcy.
Jesse Plemons describes the script as one of the “strangest, funniest, most tragic” things he’s ever read, comparing it to Dr. Strangelove.
Iñárritu has apparently been developing the movie for close to a decade now, with Cruise attached for seven years already. At CinemaCon 2026, Cruise told audiences, “It took 40 years for me to be able to put on the boots of Digger Rockwell and to reveal the many layers of the character.”
Iñárritu sounds just as stunned by Cruise’s transformation as audiences are. “Watching Tom Cruise become Digger Rockwell, I was not prepared for that,” the director said. “Embodying this character is another kind of fearless… this role could be his most challenging high-wire act.”
With everything happening in the world today, we probably need political satires with important messages like this to make the right waves in the industry. And it probably helps that Emmanuel Lubezki will handle all the beautiful cinematography.
Tom Cruise has always received praise from filmmakers over the years, with many believing that he’s one of the greats — particularly for his best dramatic work. Digger is a chance to silence haters. And based on what we’ve already seen, he’s going for gold.
Either way, nobody’s going to mistake him for Ethan Hunt here.
