Tom Cruise, heavy makeup
CinemaCon footage revealed Tom Cruise transformed into an overweight, cat‑loving billionaire in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger, with critics saying he looks nearly unrecognizable. ( )
Tom Cruise used Warner Bros.’ CinemaCon presentation on April 14 to unveil first footage from “Digger,” appearing with gray hair, a big belly and a thick Southern accent. (variety.com) Variety reported that Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an “insane, cat-loving billionaire,” while The Hollywood Reporter described the footage as showing him as a billionaire “trying to clean up his own mess.” (variety.com) (hollywoodreporter.com) Cruise appeared onstage in Las Vegas with director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who called the performance “another kind of fearless,” according to Deadline. Cruise told the crowd, “It took 40 years for me to be able to put on the boots of Digger Rockwell,” Variety reported. (deadline.com) (variety.com) The film is scheduled to open in United States theaters on October 2, 2026, through Warner Bros. Pictures. Warner Bros. and trade reports have described it as a dark comedy, and the studio’s earlier teaser called it “a comedy of catastrophic proportions.” (variety.com) (deadline.com) That setup marks a sharp turn from Cruise’s recent run of action franchises. His last decade has been dominated by “Top Gun: Maverick” and the “Mission: Impossible” series, while Iñárritu is best known for “Birdman,” “The Revenant” and “Bardo.” (britannica.com 1) (britannica.com 2) The project was first announced in February 2024 as Cruise’s first film with Iñárritu, from a script credited to Iñárritu, Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone. Warner Bros. set the title and release date in December 2025. (deadline.com) (variety.com) The studio’s official synopsis says the story follows “the most powerful man in the world” as he races to prove he is humanity’s savior before a disaster he unleashed destroys everything. That premise lines up with the CinemaCon footage’s portrait of Rockwell as a wealthy man at the center of a crisis. (youtube.com) (imdb.com) The cast also includes Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, Michael Stuhlbarg and John Goodman. For now, the transformation itself is the selling point: a Tom Cruise movie built around disguise, satire and a character meant to look nothing like Tom Cruise. (wikipedia.org) (variety.com)
