Tom Cruise’s Oscar-worthy transformation for Digger is even more bonkers than I expected

The first trailer for Tom Cruise’s long-teased movie Digger has finally been released – proving it wasn’t just hot air when insiders hyped up the Hollywood star’s transformation for his role.

Collaborating with director Alejandro G Iñárritu, this movie has long been positioned as the one which will finally net action-man Cruise that acting Oscar.

A special career retrospective trailer was even released two weeks before this one, positioning it as a new career pinnacle for the A-lister.

The Mission: Impossible star, 64, looks worlds apart from his usual self, playing eccentric cat-loving billionaire Digger Rockwell, with a pot belly and messy grey hair – and a broad Southern US drawl.

As many fans excitedly noted, it’s the biggest physical makeover (makeunder?) the actor has subjected himself to since the fat suit and bald cap required for Tropic Thunder’s angry studio exec Les Grossman in 2008.

Digger positions its protagonist as ‘the most powerful man in the world’, who must ‘race to prove he is humanity’s saviour before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything’.

‘Everything changes, you know? One day, you’re a cat – or a king. Next day, you’re just ashes in a box,’ Cruise’s Digger muses as the trailer starts, showing him with his beer belly hanging over his boxer shorts as he dresses.

He then coos over a cat he’s holding like a baby in bed, imploring: ‘Just take a little taste for Daddy. Come on, sweetheart.’

What follows next is Digger dismissing a potentially catastrophic five-foot crack on a glacier in Greenland, asking one of his employees based out there: ‘What, do you want me to shut down a billion-dollar platform over something that’s 10 times the size of my d**k?’

We then cut to a briefing room – with Digger in attendance – where the US President (John Goodman) is being told the country is ‘utterly unprotected against a disaster of this magnitude’ as nuclear plants are shown on a news bulletin being damaged by a tsunami.

‘Digger here got us into this mess and Digger’s gonna dig us again,’ the president then responds, as snippets of Cruise dancing with a spade, which have previously been teased, play out.

He’s also seen being reprimanded by the president’s advisor Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), who shouts: ‘You knew long before the rest of us. That is why it is your problem!’

Later Digger accompanies the president on a military bomber plane, who unloads a warhead and yells: ‘F**k this iceberg. Let’s dance!’

The comparisons were instant for fans, with Tedward commenting on YouTube: ‘Reminds me of Dr Strangelove. I’m all in.’

‘The Tom Cruise-ification of Dr Strangelove… I’m sold,’ agreed @WaterHazard86, while Gonzalo Frías wrote on Instagram: ‘Dr Strangelove for our times, in Iñarritu we trust and Tom’s getting his Oscar for acting, long overdue.’

‘Finally, a movie where Tom Cruise’s most dangerous stunt is raw unfiltered acting,’ quipped @thatonethingthatsathing as others shared that their anticipation for the movie was ‘astronomically high’.

‘PEAK PEAK PEAK PEAK. I’VE SEEN ENOUGH. GIVE THIS MAN AN OSCAR,’ exclaimed another excited fan.

Cruise is a three-time acting Academy Award nominee, for 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July, 1996’s Jerry Maguire and 2000’s Magnolia, in addition to a producing nod for Top Gun: Maverick.

The cast for Digger is rounded out by Project Hail Mary’s Sandra Hüller, Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg and Sophie Wilde.

It’s been written by its director, alongside Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman.

‘The transformation he went through was astonishing. “Alejandro, it took me 40 years to become this character,” he told me once,’ filmmaker Iñárritu said in a video message sent to a special trailer launch event held on the Warner Bros lot in Hollywood with Cruise.

‘And I think we both know what it means to carry an entire career into a single moment like this. We both knew that throughout our journeys, we had never done anything even close to this.’

Cruise agreed, reiterating to the attendees, as per The Hollywood Reporter, that the film is unlike anything that he’s made before.

‘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.’

Digger will release in cinemas on October 2, 2026.