Tom Cruise is in the building!
Warner Bros. and Legendary have offered a first extended look at Digger, their dark comedy teaming Tom Cruise with The Revenant and Birdman helmer Alejandro G. Iñárritu, with both on hand to tease the film.
While Digger‘s title and logline were kept under wraps for some time, we now know the film stars Cruise, in a transformative turn, as the most powerful man in the world, who races to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything.
In the trailer, we find balding, big-bellied industrialist Digger Rockwell meeting with a doctor about his cat, who he’s told has either “two weeks or five minutes” to live.
Later,. speaking in a Southern accent, swinging baseball bass in pajamas, he yells at himself, saying, “hustle is something you sorely lack, you lazy piece of sh*t!”
A scientist then speaks with Digger on Zoom about something Digger keeps calling a “five-foot crack” and compares to the size of his penis.
“What do you want me to do?” Digger asks, “Shut down a billion dollar platform over something a tenth the size of my dick?”
We learn that Digger has brought on some kind of environmental disaster via his business activities — compromising “the structural integrity of the entire ice shelf.”
President John Goodman explores the “worst case scenario” — the disaster will displace millions and cause trillions in economic impact — but assures his staffers, “Digger got us into this, and Digger is going to dig us out.”
“Panic is a resource,” Digger says optimistically. “Panic wakes people up.”
Appearing alongside Iñárritu and his former Magnolia co-star Patton Oswalt, who hosted Warner Bros.’ presentation, Cruise said he first began talking with the filmmaker about working together seven years ago. Excited about the prospect, Cruise got on his motorcycle “in the middle of the night” to meet, coming from work on Top Gun: Maverick.
Cruise called the project “ne plus ultra,” wild and funny, saying, “this kind of movie is why I want to make movies.”
Iñárritu said the film is about “the uncontrollable, delusional need to control things even when we know that we will fail” — “a powerful man who did not change the world but changed the way people see the world.” He said he shot it “in Vistavision, only to be seen in theaters.”
“Watching Tom Cruise becoming Digger, I was not prepared for that, I have to say,” the director added. “We know that he is fearless: the stunts, the planes, the jumps. But I have to say, I think this is another kind of fearless. This role possibly could be [his] most challenging…and actually it was a high-wire act. I hope you will see what I mean [by] that.”
Iñárritu previously told Deadline at Cannes that Digger is a “wild comedy of catastrophic proportions,” sharing of Cruise, “He makes me laugh every day. The range that I discovered working with Tom is unprecedented for me as a director. I was so f*cking impressed and happy.”
Iñárritu directed Digger from a script written with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, also producing alongside Cruise, and Mary Parent for Legendary Entertainment. Opening October 2 opposite Amazon MGM’s Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity, helmed by Michael Showalter, pic’s cast also includes Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, Robert John Burke, Burn Gorman, and Michael Stuhlbarg.
English (US) ·