‘Digger’ Trailer Event Q&A With Tom Cruise

In a vast theater on the Warner Bros. Studios lot a few days ago, star Tom Cruise participated in person in a live Q&A and shared the first trailer for his upcoming 2026 film ‘Digger,’ due out on October 2.

“A man. A plan. A meltdown.”

Release Date: Oct 2, 2026

Run Time: 1 hr 46 min

Budget: $200,000,000

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (‘Birdman’), and described as a ‘comedy of catastrophic proportions,’ the film stars Cruise as Digger Rockwell, the most powerful man in the world, who races to become humanity’s savior before a global cataclysm – which he unleashed – wipes out civilization.

After spending a lot of time in the action hero space for the past few years with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and the ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies, Cruise utterly submerges himself here in the role of the paunchy, wrinkled, self-serving, and ill-tempered Digger. Les Grossman in ‘Tropic Thunder’ has nothing on this dude, and our first glimpse of Cruise’s transformation in the trailer is both shocking and a little unnerving.

Tom Cruise stars in ‘Digger’. Photo: Warner Bros.

The rest of the cast includes Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg, Emma D’Arcy, and, as a demented, barely functioning president of the United States, John Goodman. According to Iñárritu – who provided a pre-recorded message from London, where he is finishing the film – ‘Digger’ has been in development for 10 years. The film is shot in VistaVision with special lenses built just for Iñárritu and his longtime cinematographer, Emmanuel ‘Chivo’ Lubezki.

With strong ‘Dr. Strangelove’ vibes, ‘Digger’ looks like a raucous fusion of satire, farce, and social commentary, and may be Tom Cruise’s most challenging role to date. As Iñárritu said in his message:

‘People often ask me why I chose Tom to play Digger. To me, that’s like asking somebody why do you drink water when you are thirsty. Because it’s what you need. The film needed Tom…The transformation he went through was astonishing.’

Related Article: 35 Best Tom Cruise Movies of All Time!

1) Tom Cruise Was A Fan Of Alejandro Iñárritu Long Before They Finally Got To Work Together

(L to R) Tom Cruise and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu for ‘Digger’ at CinemaCon 2026. Photo Credit: David Jon @davidjonphotography.

Tom Cruise says he has been tracking Iñárritu’s career ever since seeing his breakthrough film, but it took years before they finally met.

Tom Cruise: When I saw his film 25 years ago, ‘Amores Perros,’ what a brilliant film. It was amazing. I was one of the first audiences, and I heard about it early on, so when I saw that film, I don’t know how you all felt, but I was like, ‘What the f**k? This guy!’ The beauty of anyone in their field, they have a skilled eye for looking at something. So I’m seeing the details of this filmmaker, what he conquered very early on here, and I’m going, how? The staging. Chivo and what they’re doing with the camera. The design. The performances. The color in the movie. Every aspect of that film was very thought out, very detailed, and you could feel the powerful human voice of someone who was incredibly skilled at what they were doing. And so I called all my friends. I was having people over. I was like, ‘Call the studios. You got to see this movie. Who’s this guy, Alejandro?’ I’d never heard of him before. And he and I didn’t meet for many, many years. Then years later he came to me, and we talked.

2) ‘Digger’ Is Unlike Anything Tom Cruise Has Done Before

‘Digger’ opens in theaters on October 2, 2026.

Cruise and Iñárritu first began collaborating on ‘Digger’ seven years ago, with Cruise saying that Iñárritu ‘has never made something like this before, and nor have I.’

Tom Cruise: There’s nothing better than to physically and metaphorically stand on the edge of a cliff and go, ‘Let’s do this. And I trust you and whatever we’re going to do, I know this is going to be a hell of an experience and let’s come together and let’s do it. Let’s all do it.’ I have never had something that could challenge me in this way and neither has Alejandro when we went in, ever. And when you see this film, it’s totally original.

3) Cruise Says Creating Digger Rockwell Was Like Composing A Piece Of Music

Tom Cruise stars in ‘Digger’. Photo: Warner Bros.

Tom Cruise says that finding out how to play Digger Rockwell and what he looked like was all about finding the character’s ‘rhythm.’

Tom Cruise: Like anything, there’s not one rhythm [that] fits all, as we know. I mean, if you look at the difference between a ‘Risky Business’ and a ‘Jerry Maguire,’ to a Les Grossman or ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ each has its own musicality. It has its own vision. If you start to feel the musicality of the character, it has a rhythm, and it’s not a rhythm like anything else. So the behavior of a character, the movement of a character, these are things that, as we’re looking at the makeup side, as you’re developing it, you go, ‘Is this our tone? Is it drama? Is it comedy? Is it too much?’…When we’re looking for characters, we’re looking for humor, drama, certain constructs. I’m always asking, ‘How do I communicate this?’ The physicality, the makeup, that is stuff that you find as you are learning how to communicate. You really have to understand the tools. It’s not one size fits all.

4) Cruise Has Nothing But Praise For VistaVision

‘Digger’ opens in theaters on October 2, 2026.

Although VistaVision was only initially around for seven years after being introduced in 1954, the fine-grain 35mm film format – which provides exceptional resolution and clarity – has made a comeback recently on films like ‘The Brutalist,’‘Wuthering Heights,’ and ‘One Battle After Another.’

Tom Cruise: It’s not just shooting on VistaVision. It’s the development of the handmade lenses that we were able to make. It was wild seeing the VistaVision, but also the lenses that they created to get this handcrafted look, you can see and feel the difference. Just loading a camera in VistaVision, the sound of that film going through, I was like, ‘Just everyone quiet for a second. Let’s just hear it going through.’ It’s a beautiful thing. I love it.

5) Cruise Says That After More Than 40 Years, He’s Learned Something From Every Film He’s Worked On

‘Digger’ opens in theaters on October 2, 2026.

Cruise says that he’s always wanted to absorb everything about the creation of every film he’s made, a journey that started with his earliest movies and has continued with ‘Digger.’

Tom Cruise: On ‘Taps,’ I’m there with DP Owen Roizman and he’s talking about lenses. He’s got to be thinking, ‘Yeah, this kid’s just asking me a gazillion questions.’ And he’s telling me all these technical things and I was just trying to absorb what he was saying. So, understanding also then every place that I would go, I was watching and I was going, boy, these guys knew. They understood the camera, they understood framing, they understood the stage and how to utilize that stage to create an effect. Later on I realized it wasn’t just Owen Roizman and the knowledge that he had at that particular moment, but everyone that he learned from previously when he was the young guy loading the cameras, being there with the great masters and not so great masters. You learn from both…I think back to that kid on the set looking into different departments, and those people that were gracious enough to be able to share that knowledge, and I was like, ‘I know I don’t understand it now. One day I will understand it more,’ and I did. I feel fortunate.

‘Digger’ opens in theaters on October 2, 2026.