For the first time in what feels like over a decade, Tom Cruise will star in a film that isn’t a rip-roaring, swashbuckling, big-time Hollywood blockbuster action movie. Digger, directed by Oscar-winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, looks like a big, theatrically staged film in which Cruise plays an old, eccentric Southern billionaire. From the bizarre performances to the enormous sets and wide-angle cinematography, the whole thing looks like an ode to Dr. Strangelove.After marinating in the marketing material for a while, some folks on the internet, like my former boss at Cracked.com, Jason Pargin, in a video that went viral across multiple platforms, started to develop interesting ideas about Digger, leading to a single fascinating question: Is Digger secretly a musical? @jasonkpargin ♬ original sound – Jason Pargin, author The Wild Theory About Tom Cruise’s New Movie ‘Digger’ Has Finally Been AddressedAs Variety reported Friday, the answer is no. The publication spoke with two people familiar with the production who confirmed that Digger is not a musical, although both were apparently amused that anyone thought it was.Having seen the trailer a couple of times online, once or twice on TV, and twice when I went to see Odyssey in IMAX, I admit I never once considered it could be a musical. It just looked like a big, theatrically staged film with big, boisterous personalities that fill the massive screen. After hearing the evidence for the theory, I have to admit, there is something to it.The actors are on sets that look like they would be right at home on a Broadway stage. Throughout the footage shown so far, there are several moments when some of the actors look like they’re in the middle of a musical performance.Some of them even have musical backgrounds. Sandra Hüller has released an album, and fellow cast member Riz Ahmed was a rapper long before he was ever an actor. It might seem weird that Tom Cruise would be in a musical, but he already was in a musical — Rock of Ages, a 2012 jukebox musical based on a Broadway play. People also tend to forget that before Tom Cruise dedicated a huge chunk of his life to being the world’s preeminent action star, he was a daring actor who took creative risks in a variety of roles. The guy is legit, but eight Mission: Impossible movies tend to make people forget his performances as, say, Frank TJ Mackey in Magnolia, or Ron Kovic from Born on the Fourth of July, or Charlie Babbitt from Rain Man, or Jerry Maguire from, you guessed it, Jerry Maguire, or Vincent in Collateral.Tom Cruise is a terrific actor who isn’t afraid to leap entirely out of his comfort zone. The problem is that fearlessness eventually led him to leap off the side of the Burj Khalifa for a while instead of playing interesting characters in weird movies like he used to.All that said, denying that Digger is a musical makes sense. Recent films such as Wonka and Mean Girls were accused of hiding their musical elements in marketing, and who would’ve guessed that consumers didn’t like buying a product that turned out to be something else entirely.We won’t truly find out what Digger actually is (other than its obvious homage to Doctor Strangelove) until the thing comes out on October 2.The post Is Tom Cruise’s New Movie ‘Digger’ Secretly a Musical? Here’s Everything We Know. appeared first on VICE.