Tom Cruise is making a comedy. That alone would turn heads. The director attached to the project makes it even more interesting.
FOX Sports confirmed on Instagram that Cruise will star in “Digger,” an original, epic comedy from Alejandro G. Iñárritu. It opens in theaters this October.
The Cruise-Iñárritu combination is not something anyone had on their bingo card. Iñárritu is one of the most serious filmmakers working today. He won the Academy Award for Best Director two years in a row – Birdman in 2014, then The Revenant in 2015.
His earlier films, Babel and 21 Grams among them, dealt in grief and moral weight. Comedy is far outside his usual territory.
Cruise has built his career on action films and franchise filmmaking. Top Gun: Maverick, released in 2022, became one of the biggest hits of his career. Mission: Impossible remains one of Hollywood’s most dependable franchises.
A full feature comedy is something he hasn’t really taken on before. The closest he came was his cameo as the blustery studio exec Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder back in 2008, and even that was a supporting role.
“Digger” is a departure for both men. The description – “original, epic comedy” – raises plenty of questions.
“Epic” rarely gets attached to comedies. The word signals scale and ambition.
This doesn’t sound like a typical laugh-out-loud film. It sounds like something bigger.
Hollywood has a long history of comedies reaching for something beyond laughs alone. Films like Dr. Strangelove and Blazing Saddles blended comedy with something grander.
Maybe “Digger” is aiming for that kind of territory. That would be genuinely exciting.
Details are scarce right now. No plot summary or trailer has been shared, and no additional cast has been announced.
The FOX Sports announcement named Cruise and Iñárritu, confirmed October, and left everything else open. With names this recognizable, that’s probably enough to keep audiences curious.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths was Iñárritu’s last film. It landed on Netflix at the end of 2022 and split critics and audiences.
Some celebrated it as a visionary achievement. Others couldn’t connect with it at all. Either way, it made clear that Iñárritu doesn’t play it safe.
Stepping into comedy after that is a genuine left turn. But a willingness to surprise people has always been part of his approach.
An October release date puts “Digger” deep in awards season. Studios fight for those fall slots. With Iñárritu directing, the Academy will be paying attention, comedy label and all.
No trailer or footage has been released yet, and there’s no announced supporting cast. But with two names this recognizable attached to something this unexpected, October 2026 just got a lot more interesting.
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