After the ‘Digger’ Disaster, What Should Tom Cruise Do Next?

Rest assured, we’re not here to re-litigate the weekend’s big box office story — hell, the year’s big box office story — about the spectacular bust of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Tom Cruise-starring satire “Digger.” Well, not exactly. After pulling in just $8 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend, any chance of recouping its cost is buried under six feet of dirt and oil (important math: the film officially cost $125 million to produce, though sources put the true price tag between $160 million to $180 million, and thus needs to make roughly $350 million theatrically to break even). For an auteur like Iñárritu and a star like Cruise, this kind of modern-day “Ishtar” will not prove to be career-ending, but what they opt to do next still matters greatly. We’ve got some ideas, as least as they apply to a movie star who has never run (hehe) from the chance to do something old, something new, something borrowed, or even something blue. Ahead, five IndieWire staffers pitch their ideas for a Cruise course-correct. “Days of Thunder 2” Recency bias? Sure! But I’m not just saying “Cruise should do a ‘Days of Thunder’ sequel next” because a) I love to be right and b) he’s already announced the damn thing, but because I am one of the “Top Gun: Maverick” faithful. I know what it’s like to wait decades for a sequel that sounds ready-made for disaster and then be totally blown away by its final product. Cruise did it once, and he can do it again. As I’ve noted (before, and endlessly): what made “Maverick” work is that it wasn’t doesn’t shy away from the DNA of the original — hello, beach volleyball! — without also injecting bigger, bolder ideas into the story. That may sound like the most easy and obvious way to build a sequel (especially a legacy-quel), but looking around at the film’s brethren, it’s clear how very special that formula is. The secret sauce of Tony Scott’s film was always that we actually cared about Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and that his literally high-flying adventures were a way to get closer to him, not just an excuse for big-and-loud action. Next up: we gotta do that for Cole Trickle. Tap into the same next-gen spirit that made “Maverick” such a star-minting machine and get real clear about the cost of a driving a racecar for decades. Cruise’s Cole already endured loss and injury in the first film, so that stuff? It’s already baked right in. Of all of Cruise’s early films, this is the one most primed for “Maverick” level success, but it has to be done right. —Kate Erbland Tom Cruise and Anne Hathaway announce ‘Days of Thunder’ sequelKurt Iswarienko for Paramount Pictures “Digger 2” Tom Cruise following the extraordinary audacity of “Digger” with “Days of Thunder 2” fills me with a sadness rivaled only by what I experienced when Hilary Duff released a theme song for the new “Cat in a Hat” movie hot on the heels of her masterful “luck…or something” album. I’d much rather see Cruise lean into the ambition and riskiness he reintroduced in “Digger,” a movie that reminded me that not only is Tom Cruise one of our greatest movie stars, he’s one of our greatest actors, period. Maybe Cruise has got something special in store for the return of Cole Trickle, but if he’s going to return to old IP, I’d be much more curious about where Joel Goodsen (“Risky Business”) is these days (have the Trump years and tech boom been good to him?), or how TJ Mackey (“Magnolia”) is doing in the manosphere. What number wife is Dr. Bill Harford (“Eyes Wide Shut”) on? Hell, Tom, if you’re going to keep doing sequels, give us “Digger 2” and go full-on meta — make a movie about a movie star playing an actor in a play about an oil tycoon in a movie that’s an artistic triumph but a commercial disaster, and dive deep into what it all means for you as our reigning cinema deity! I know the new regime at Warner Bros. won’t finance it, but you can bankroll it yourself — just launder some of that Ethan Hunt money into something truly glorious for all of us who saw “Digger” not as a plummet but an ascension. —Jim Hemphill ‘Digger’©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection Double Down As Cruise navigates the fallout of “Digger” flopping at the box office, he’d be wise to consider his character’s own wisdom that we only have the facts right now… the story has yet to be told. If Cruise and his team treat “Digger” like a failure by sprinting back to the comfort of legacy sequels and action blockbusters, that’s how we’ll remember it. It’ll be seen as evidence that Cruise didn’t know his audience and got roped into making the kind of film he has no business doing. The best way to change the narrative might be to own these results and do another project in the same vein as soon as possible. If Mr. Cruise asked me for my advice, I’d say: Find another top-tier auteur that’s unconcerned about commercial storytelling and make another film that’s just as weird and uncompromising. Even if it’s another “Digger”-level flop (and it might not be!), suddenly you’ve added another reason that we should celebrate you as Hollywood’s savior. You’re a movie star who can do anything he wants, and yet you’re choosing to spend your time and capital to help auteurs get the budgets they need, box office appeal be damned. And it’s unlikely to ever cut into your other opportunities — you’re still Tom Cruise, and “Top Gun” and “Mission: Impossible” will always be there for you when you need them. “Digger” didn’t produce the results that Cruise was hoping for, but his next actions will determine whether his eventual obituary writers canonize it as an ill-advised footnote or the start of an incredible new chapter in a career that was already filled with them. —Christian Zilko ‘Edge of Tomorrow’©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection Ditch the Practical Stuff and Go Back to Sci-Fi Part of Tom Cruise’s appeal in his “Savior of Cinema” era is that, between “Top Gun Maverick” and “Mission: Impossible,” he’s been making modern-day, real-world action films with practical effects and stunts, pushing his body to new limits with each movie in a way that very few other actors are dedicating themselves to do. It suggests that a “Days of Thunder” sequel might be more of that, doing the “F1” thing and strapping Cruise to a real NASCAR. But if it’s been a long time since Cruise has had to demonstrate that he can still act with a character-driven movie for grown-ups, it’s been just as long since Cruise has done something that is more fantastical or in which there’s a bigger concept and selling point beyond “Tom Cruise Does Insane Thing.” “Edge of Tomorrow” came out way back in 2014, and it may be one of his underrated best movies, and prior to that was the first time he teamed with Joseph Kosinski on “Oblivion.” It’s been even longer between “War of the Worlds” and “Minority Report,” and frankly we wouldn’t mind seeing him team with Steven Spielberg again. So we would love to see him take on another sci-fi, something where he’s in service to a high concept that might not work without him. “Groundhog Day” with an alien invasion doesn’t work unless you have Cruise’s relentless determination (and Emily Blunt’s no-effs-given toughness) anchoring “Edge of Tomorrow.” It honestly might help his body long term to do a little more green screen work and find himself in another special-effects heavy role. Just, please, not another “Mummy” movie. —Brian Welk On the set of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’Scott Garfield Truly Embrace an Elder Statesman Role If there has been one Tom Cruise development behind the scenes that has felt like a major difference from his glory days, it’s the way in which he’s taken young talent under his wing(s). With “Top Gun: Maverick” alone, there were stories of him putting his young colleagues through a movie star boot camp, getting them in military-grade shape, and teaching them how to fly. Co-star Glen Powell even said he sat in a theater alone for six hours hearing Cruise deliver a pretaped seminar on acting for the screen. One of the actor’s most iconic moments was opposite Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men,” truly generational game recognizing game. Although Cruise is now a decade older than Nicholson was when they shot that film together, he has not quite embraced his elder statesman status in a similar way. The only films of his since “Collateral” that have been anywhere close to a two-hander are the ones with romantic interests like “Knight and Day” or “Edge of Tomorrow.” While it would be significant for Cruise to star in a film opposite a Miles Teller or a Lewis Pullman on more equal footing, the dynamic that would be most interesting would be for Cruise to appear in a film one of his mentees wrote or directed. For example, Powell proved himself as a talented screenwriter with “Hit Man,” a film that absolutely could have been a Tom Cruise vehicle 20 years ago. He and Cruise working together in a deeper capacity would be fascinating. Fellow “Top Gun: Maverick” star Danny Ramirez also just wrapped his directorial debut “Baton,” so Cruise does not even have to look to far to find a stable of young filmmakers who he works well with (and who revere him) that could have more interesting ideas for what roles audiences would want to see him in next. —Marcus Jones