Disclosure Day: Release Date, Cast, Trailers & More
Here's everything we know about Steven Spielberg's return to the sci-fi world of aliens, from the cast to the story and more.
In April of 2024, Steven Spielberg announced his next feature film would mark his return to the world of UFOs. Based on an original idea of his own, Disclosure Day would reunite him with screenwriter David Koepp, the scribe behind Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World (1997), as well as War of the Worlds (2005) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). (Koepp said during a recent Vanity Fair profile that it took over 40 drafts to get the script perfect.) The then untitled movie was given a prime May release date a full two years in advance. That original May 15th, 2026 release would eventually be pushed to June.
As the director himself said during the keynote speech at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, “I don’t know any more than any of you do, but I have a very strong suspicion that we are not alone here on Earth right now. I made a movie about that.”
By the time Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day hits theaters, it will have been 21 years since the director last did an alien movie, that being the Tom Cruise-starring adaptation of War of the Worlds. Extraterrestrials have fascinated Spielberg, going all the way back to 1977 and the release of his feature Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He’d follow that up with the iconic mega-blockbuster E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
Disclosure Day looks to be one of the biggest movies of the summer, with early critics comments on social media calling it “top tier Spielberg, as exhilarating as Raiders but with the emotional texture & increased ambition of his post-9/11 work.” So, as we prepare to learn what Spielberg has disclosed for us, let’s look at everything we already know about Disclosure Day.
Who’s In It?
Disclosure Day boasts an all-star cast led by Emily Blunt, who was circling the project as far back as June 2024. In August of that same year British actor Colin Firth was confirmed to be in the film, still being called “the untitled Spielberg/Amblin/Universal film.” The rest of the cast would start taking shape throughout 2024, including the casting of Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, and Wyatt Russell.
Domingo revealed after his casting that “I finished reading the script and I bawled. I thought it was one of the most beautiful scripts about our humanity. I think it was just the most beautiful film about our humanity, and I literally cried because Steven Spielberg believes in the possibility of the human beings we could be.”
Josh O’Connor also joined the production, allegedly without having to audition. He shared in a 2025 interview while promoting his feature The Mastermind that “About this time last year, I was in New York, and on the night of the Met Gala, I got a text from my agent saying, ‘Can you meet Steven Spielberg tomorrow for coffee?’ And I was like, ‘Yes!’ And I went to his office, Amblin. He told me he didn’t have a script, but he told me the story of the movie and he said, ‘Would you like to do it?’ And I sort of feigned, ‘Let me think about it.’ But obviously…”
The cast would be rounded out by Elizabeth Marvel, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Michael Gaston, Elliot Villar, Tommy Martinez, Mckenna Bridger, Patricia Conolly, Noah Robbins, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Lance Archer, Brian Cage, and Gabby Beans.
Filming took place throughout 2025 in New Jersey, Atlanta and New York City, wrapping up in May of that year.
What’s It About?
Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is a cybersecurity expert who comes to discover the truth about alien life. He decides to become a whistleblower and share the truth with the world, putting him in conflict with the head of a corporation (Colin Firth) who wants the information to stay secret. Daniel and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) go on the run. Along the way, a Kansas City meteorologist (Emily Blunt) starts experiencing strange phenomenon and believes she and Daniel are linked.
Is This Connected to Any Other Spielberg Films?
It’s not clear if there are direct correlations between Disclosure Day and previous Spielberg alien movies, but he’s talked about Disclosure Day as part of the continuum of his interest in alien life that started with Close Encounters.
In a video released in February of this year, Spielberg explained his interest in life beyond our own and making the movie: “I’ve always been fascinated with things that cannot be explained, and I’ve made a lot of movies about things that cannot be explained, from sharks to saucers. When I was just a little kid, I remember developing a real curiosity about the sky at night and what’s happening up there, and also not the possibility but the guarantee that there is life off this planet. People’s questions about what is not only going on in our skies, but what is going on in our worlds, in our realities, has reached a critical mass of people’s complete fascination with: Are we alone or are we not alone? And if someone knows we’re not alone, why haven’t we been told?”
As Spielberg said during a first look at the movie, his relationship to extraterrestrial life has changed since working on Close Encounters. “I have seven solid decades of a vast personal interest in what lies beyond our atmosphere, in the cosmos, and what is within our atmosphere right here on planet Earth,” Spielberg said in an interview with Empire magazine. “The question has always remained for me: Are we alone on our own planet? I cannot imagine that we are alone out there. That question has not only haunted me, but it has inspired me. But, I think, it has now resolved itself to my satisfaction in Disclosure Day.” Blunt explains in that same Empire interview that the movie certainly “answers questions posed” by Close Encounters.
So while it doesn’t seem like we’ll have characters from that film pop up here, we can say they are somewhat related in a general sense.
Are There Any Trailers?
Promotion for the movie started in December of 2025, with Times Square rocking a massive video billboard simply showing the tagline “All will be disclosed,” Spielberg’s name, and the release date. A two-minute teaser trailer was released that same month introducing audiences to the characters, if not particularly explaining what the story was. A Super Bowl teaser would soon follow in February of 2026 alongside a “first look” video with Spielberg himself talking about his interest in aliens. The full trailer, laying out the plot, arrived in March with a final trailer dropping May 27.
When Will It Be Released?
Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day hits theaters June 12.
