The sci-fi UFO thriller from the Jurassic Park director headlines a summer slate stacked with anticipated blockbusters and franchise entries.
With the summer movie season now firmly in view, the theatrical release calendar is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated in recent memory, headlined by Steven Spielberg’s first foray into UFO territory since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Disclosure Day, set for release on June 12, reunites Spielberg with screenwriter David Koepp — their collaboration stretching back to Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds — for an original science fiction story about an alien encounter that has been kept almost entirely under wraps.
The cast alone has generated enormous anticipation: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, and Wyatt Russell are among the ensemble. Spielberg’s ability to marshal A-list talent around a sci-fi concept with genuine secrecy is itself a feat in the current media environment, and the film arrives with the considerable goodwill generated by the director’s track record of transforming intimate human stories into spectacular popular cinema.
Just two weeks before Disclosure Day, on June 5, Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe brings He-Man to the big screen for the first time in nearly four decades. Nicholas Galitzine stars as Prince Adam, the Earth-marooned hero who discovers his destiny, with Jared Leto playing the iconic villain Skeletor, and a supporting cast that includes Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, and Idris Elba. The film opens the same weekend as the new Scary Movie, written and produced by the Wayans brothers.
Pixar’s Toy Story 5 follows on June 19, directed by Andrew Stanton — whose credits include Wall-E and Finding Nemo — with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen returning as Woody and Buzz Lightyear. The film’s central conflict sees the beloved toys grappling with the rise of consumer electronics threatening their place in children’s lives.
Then comes July, which is headlined by Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on July 17. The film represents one of the most ambitious undertakings in recent blockbuster history: an adaptation of Homer’s epic starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, with a supporting ensemble including Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, and Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Notably, The Odyssey is the first blockbuster to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras — a technological landmark that follows in the footsteps of Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The director, who has never premiered a film at Cannes, is positioning the film as a standalone theatrical event of the highest order.
