Today’s first full trailer for Digger shows Top Gun star Tom Cruise in his least recognizable role yet — as an aging CEO who realizes he must save the planet from a natural disaster he created.
But rather than rappeling in on a zipwire or nuking something from a fighter jet, Cruise’s next role as Digger Rockwell sees the actor saving the world from under a heavy layer of prosthetic makeup.
Cruise’s character is portrayed as a wealthy billionaire who initially doesn’t care that his actions have started melting the polar icecaps — a process that will result in trillions of dollars in damage unless disaster is averted. (A news report shown on TV features a brief clip of poor old London getting flooded!)
Digg. Or Die. DIGGER. Only in theaters October 2. pic.twitter.com/jDCOyl8bXU
— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) July 13, 2026
Luckily, Digger Rockwell ultimately appears to be convinced he must help by a similarly aging president (played by John Goodman), via a plan that seems to involve flying up to the North Pole and… blowing some stuff up? Some aspects of a typical Tom Cruise film still seem present, at least.
“Digg. Or Die,” reads the movie’s tagline. Here’s hoping its the former.
The deliberately quirky Digger is the latest project of Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the famed Mexican writer and director behind Birdman and The Revenant. The movie also features an impressive supporting cast, including Star Wars: Rogue One’s Riz Ahmed, Project Hail Mary’s Sandra Hüller, Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons and Dopesick’s Michael Stuhlbarg.
Keen to see more? Barring another trailer, there’s just three months to go until Digger arrives in theaters on October 2, 2026.
Image credit: YouTube.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social