Disclosure Day Trailer Reveals Steven Spielberg’s First Sci-fi Movie in 7 Years (And It’s Unlike Any of His Other Hits)

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Disclosure Day features an all-star cast front and center, with Spielberg bringing together Oscar nominee Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place), Emmy and Golden Globe winner Josh O’Connor (Challengers, The Crown), Oscar winner Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Eve Hewson (Bridge of Spies), and two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Rustin). Spielberg directs from a screenplay by his longtime collaborator, David Koepp, having previously worked together on Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day Looks Totally Different From His Other Alien Movies

Disclosure Day arrives not only as the first Spielberg sci-fi movie in seven years (2018’s Ready Player One was his last dip into the genre) but also as his latest film that focuses on his fascination with alien life and UFOs. As fans know well, Spielberg’s work on movies about aliens began with 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which would go on to be a critical and commercial success (netting him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director after he failed to secure one for Jaws). Though the film’s success naturally gave way to talk of prequels or sequels, Spielberg decided to pursue other stories.

The filmmaker’s next film about an intergalactic visitor arrived in 1982 with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, yet another film that would define a generation and become a blockbuster success (Yes, Spielberg earned another Best Director nomination for that one, too). Both E.T. and Close Encounters work together as totemic science fiction works, displaying not only how aliens might communicate with humans, but also befriend them. Their distinct portrayals of aliens gave them some of the biggest pop culture footprints of all time.

Spielberg would leave the aliens aside for a time until 2005’s War of the Worlds, a much more terrifying take on the material. Made in the shadow of 9/11, the film stands apart from the previous two UFO movies by Spielberg thanks to its darker tone and much scarier take on the aliens. We recap all that to say this: the first look at Disclosure Day seems to indicate not only that this movie is once again operating in an entirely new space from Spielberg’s other UFO/alien movies, but one that also might have pieces of them sprinkled within. The whimsy of ET, the mystery of Close Encounters, and the paranoia of War of the Worlds? Seems like another winner for Spielberg.