Tom Cruise Is Coming to Korea for the 13th Time: Setting a Hollywood Record

Tom Cruise is coming back to Seoul, and this time he's bringing a record with him. Warner Bros. Korea confirmed on September 11 that Cruise and director Alejandro González Iñárritu will arrive in South Korea on October 2 to promote their new film Digger, which opens in Korean theaters the following day.

For Cruise, this is his 13th visit to the country, a milestone the distributor says is the highest of any Hollywood actor in history. His previous trip was in May of last year for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, making this return just over a year and a half later. For Iñárritu, the visit is a homecoming of a different kind: the last time he was in Korea was 2009, when he curated screenings at the Prada Transformer film event in Seoul.

What to expect on October 2

Both Cruise and Iñárritu are scheduled to take part in a press conference and a red carpet event on the day they land, giving Korean press and fans direct access ahead of the film's release.

About Digger

Digger is a black comedy centered on Digger Rockwell, an eccentric and insufferable oil tycoon whose offshore drilling operation pushes the world to the brink of catastrophe. When Rockwell decides he's also the one person who can save it, things get complicated. Cruise plays the title role in a noticeably different register from his usual output: the character appears with white hair, deep wrinkles, and a protruding belly, a physical transformation that signals this is not a standard Tom Cruise action vehicle.

Iñárritu, who won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for Birdman in 2015 and then took Best Director again for The Revenant in 2016, is one of the few filmmakers whose reunion with a major star would generate this much anticipation on its own. The supporting cast adds further weight: Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall), John Goodman (Barton Fink), and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) all appear.

Cruise's sustained commitment to showing up in person for Korean audiences has clearly built something real over the years. Thirteen visits is not a promotional obligation at this point, it's a relationship.