Ed Ruscha Designs Climate Satire Poster for Alejandro Iñárritu’s ‘Digger’ Starring Tom Cruise

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood star power converged with contemporary fine art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu and actor Tom Cruise unveiled an original theatrical poster created by famed Pop artist Ed Ruscha for their upcoming satirical black comedy, “Digger.”

The private gathering, hosted inside LACMA’s yet-to-open dining pavilion alongside museum director Michael Govan, brought together cast members John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Ross Hatt ahead of the picture’s nationwide rollout.

Cruise steps away from his long-running franchise action hero roles to portray Digger Rockwell, an unyielding petroleum baron whose drilling platform in Greenland triggers a catastrophic environmental collapse when a dislodged ice shelf drifts toward the European coastline. Developed by Iñárritu over a nine-year span as an allegorical commentary on ecological crisis and modern hubris, the film arrives accompanied by divided critical reactions following early screenings.

Ruscha, known internationally for his deadpan typographic compositions and landscapes depicting the American vernacular, translated the movie’s bleakly humorous narrative into a signature text-dominated visual. Framing an ominous central ice formation against a muted slate-gray field and beige border, the piece integrates sardonic phrases including “A Man. A Plan. A Meltdown” and the old performance adage “Comedy equals tragedy plus time.”

The partnership settles a creative debt dating back nearly a quarter of a century. During pre-production on his 2003 drama “21 Grams,” Iñárritu visited Ruscha’s Venice studio hoping to cast the painter as an obstetrician, drawn by the artist’s austere gaze. While production schedules blocked that initial screen venture, the pair stayed connected through mutual museum ventures.

LACMA has served as an institutional home for both creators. Ruscha stood as the visual arts honoree at the museum’s second annual Art + Film Gala alongside Stanley Kubrick in 2012, followed three years later by Iñárritu’s recognition alongside light-and-space artist James Turrell. The venue previously presented two major experimental ventures from the Mexican auteur: his boundary-pushing 2017 virtual reality immigrant installation “CARNE y ARENA,” and the archival montage project “Sueño Perro,” which resurrected unseen frames from “Amores Perros.”

Ruscha committed to fashioning the promotional artwork after viewing a private screening arranged by Govan roughly six months prior, later characterizing the sprawling narrative as a fast-shifting kaleidoscope of societal panic and dark farce. For Iñárritu, centering the floating frozen mass was vital to establishing the core conflict: mankind waging an absurd, self-destructive war against the natural world.

“Digger” arrives in movie theaters nationwide this Friday.