Digger Is The Closest We’ve Come To The Tom Cruise Movie Tropic Thunder Promised
Padraig is a Senior Features Writer and has been part of Screen Rant since 2017. Padraig is a writer, editor and retired Game of Thrones extra who has been writing about movies and TV online for over a decade. He has also written for The Irish Times, Den Of Geek, Little White Lies and many more. It's pronounced Paw-rick, BTW.
Tropic Thunder promised audiences a wild spinoff focused on Tom Cruise's villainous executive, but for now, Digger is the closest he has come to fulfilling that vow. While he has seemed like a movie star throughout his entire career, like any A-lister, Cruise has had his peaks and valleys. Tom Cruise movies notably weren't in major demand during the late 2000s, after the star made several poorly-received interview appearances.
This included leaping up and down on Oprah's sofa during an interview after his then-girlfriend Katie Holmes was brought up in conversation. This seemingly led to the third of Mission: Impossible movies underperforming, and Cruise fronted a run of projects that have been largely forgotten, such as the awards-baiting drama Lions for Lambs and the tepid action comedy Knight and Day.
By the time Cruise climbed the Burj Khalifa in the fourth Mission: Impossible, all was forgiven. One major bright spot during Cruise's five-year wilderness period was his shock cameo in Tropic Thunder, a vicious and hilarious parody of studio filmmaking from director Ben Stiller. In the movie, Cruise appears under heavy makeup as studio executive Les Grossman, who acts as a subvillain throughout the story.
Tom Cruise Was Supposed To Star In A Tropic Thunder Spinoff
Cruise stole the show in Tropic Thunder, with his transformation being so complete that some audiences failed to even recognize him. The film allowed Cruise to show off his neglected talent for wild comedy, with the actor using his layers of makeup to bring the repellent, foul-mouthed Grossman to life. The response to the character was so positive that Cruise later reprised Les to host the 2010 MTV Movie Awards.
That same year, a spinoff was officially announced, though talk of the Les Grossman movie soon went quiet. While Les was funny in small doses in Tropic Thunder, it was hard to see how the character could front a solo vehicle. The spinoff was said to focus on the origin of Grossman's explosive anger, with Michael Bacall (21 Jump Street) having completed a screenplay around 2012.
Ben Stiller was set to co-produce, but not direct, the Les Grossman spinoff.
It took another decade for the next update to arrive, with frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie telling the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he was developing the spinoff with Cruise. Once again, word on the movie has gone dark. It feels like the obvious reason it didn't happen - at least so far - is that Cruise doubled down on his action movie run and between 2012 and 2025, he fronted many blockbusters, including his Mission: Impossible sequels, Edge of Tomorrow and Top Gun: Maverick.
How Digger Delivers On Some Of That Promise
If Digger proves a success, maybe Cruise will finally be inspired to make good on his Les Grossman promise. That said, this dark comedy - where Cruise plays a morally bankrupt oil tycoon who causes a potentially apocalyptic ecological disaster - sees the star diving into a similar mode. Digger is another ruthless satire where Cruise plays a reprehensible figure under heavy makeup, and is the closest he's come to a straight comedy in many years.
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Alejandro G. Iñárritu's (The Revenant) blockbuster satire might not be as broadly appealing as Stiller's Tropic Thunder, but the previews and early trailers sure make it look like Cruise is having fun. Unlike his Les Grossman appearance, Cruise's Digger Rockwell is front and center, with the film being sold around the star's transformative performance. If nothing else, it's great to see Cruise disappear into a different character again - and not risking his life jumping off really high buildings.
The question will be whether audiences will actually turn up for Digger. The reviews have been mixed, and early box-office tracking numbers aren't great. If it does underperform, it will be interesting to see Cruise's next move. Does he double down with another transformative character piece (possibly a drama), or will he return once more to the safety of an action movie?
Source: Happy Sad Confused
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Digger Rockwell is the most powerful man in the world but, after unleashing a catastrophe, he must now prove to be its savior as well.
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Written and directed by Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder follows a group of bumbling actors attempting to make a Vietnam War film, who find themselves dropped into a real-life warzone when they are abandoned in the middle of the jungle they are shooting the film in. Stiller also stars in the film, with an ensemble cast that includes Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Jay Baruchel.
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