Steven Spielberg unveils Disclosure Day trailer, promising humanity's first contact

Steven Spielberg has released the trailer for Disclosure Day, a UFO thriller that marks his return to original science-fiction storytelling. The two-minute, seven-second teaser opens with a stark question—“If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?”—before following Emily Blunt as a meteorologist suddenly seized by a mysterious extraterrestrial force during a live broadcast. Josh O’Connor portrays a determined figure on a mission to reveal the truth about alien life, while Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell round out the ensemble. The film is based on an original Spielberg story with a screenplay by David Koepp, known for his work on Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds.

The trailer is replete with cryptic imagery: crop circles, high-speed chases and unsettling glimpses of otherworldly beings, all underscoring a premise that humanity may not be alone. In addition to the cinematic visuals, a careful marketing push has unfolded outside the film’s plot: on December 10, cryptic billboards appeared in Times Square and in Los Angeles bearing the message, “All will be disclosed — Spielberg 06.12.26.”

Spielberg’s fascination with UFOs and outer space traces back to childhood. He has described how his father woke him one night to watch the Perseid meteor shower from a field near Haddon Heights, New Jersey, an experience that inspired his early forays into filmmaking, including a 1964 amateur sci-fi project called Firelight. That curiosity helped propel his career, which flourished with Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, films that reshaped the genre and dominated box offices for years. E.T. remained the top-grossing film for more than a decade, and Spielberg later revisited the alien motif with War of the Worlds in 2005. Disclosure Day marks a return to that thematic well, though Koepp’s collaboration anchors the story to a modern framework.

Details about production and release remain part of the ongoing promotion, but the ensemble cast—Blunt, O’Connor, Firth, Domingo, Hewson and Russell—coupled with the teaser’s tone, suggests a blend of intimate character drama and high-stakes spectacle. The trailer’s emphasis on a weather reporter at the center of the incident adds a relatable anchor for audiences while the broader mystery invites wide-ranging speculation about humanity’s place in the cosmos. As the campaign unfolds, fans and industry observers will be watching to see how Spielberg translates this original concept into a feature that could redefine his approach to science fiction for a new era.