Famed Director Hypes up Tom Cruise’s New Comedy Film ‘Digger'

I recently watched Tom Cruise’s Mummy movie for the first time and, hoo boy. Pretty bad! And you know it’s bad when you’re more interested in a universe-building subplot based around Russell Crowe being Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Cruise just seems out of place in the whole thing, and it feels like he’s fighting against the tide. The man was aging, as we all do, and yet still trying to portray some hotshot with a penchant for danger. Seems pretty irresponsible for a man his age!

But being a young hotshot helped make Cruise a star, and he was able to dine out on that for years. But age comes for us all, man. And you gotta lean into it. In Cruise’s defense, he did, eventually. Top Gun: Maverick turned him into an elder statesman who just won’t do what he’s told (sound familiar?!). I don’t know if that triggered something in the star, or if Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Part 1?) getting schalacked by Barbenheimer humbled him, but the man is making a change.

Cruise is set to star in Digger later this year. The film was written and directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and they allegedly started talking about it while Cruise was filming Maverick in 2019. Digger will see Cruise star as “the most powerful man in the world” who tries to save it after causing a massive catastrophe. Cruise’s appearance is being (mostly) hidden for now, with it likely being revealed during the trailer, which is set to drop July 19th. There’s even a poster for the trailer where his face is obscured.

Earlier this week, a trailer was released by Warner Bros. that was a career retrospective for Cruise, and it ended with the most Digger footage that we have seen so far. However, J.J. Abrams has seen even more, and he thinks it’s spectacular. “My dear friend is no doubt about to blow our collective mind with Digger,” the director commented on X. “What an undeniably spectacular career. What a bold and wild next step. Only seen a taste of the film… cannot wait for October to see the rest!” Same, J.J., same.

Is J.J. Abrams, the man who gave us a knife that worked as a map as a central plot point in a Star Wars movie, an arbiter of cinematic excellence? Heavens no. But I’ll take any amount of hype for this train that I can get. I totally agree that this big a shift is a great idea for Cruise. Hell, it could even lead him to an Oscar nomination or win, as Iñárritu did for DiCaprio (and almost did for Keaton).