The new Steven Spielberg film, Disclosure Day with Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor, isn’t exactly lighting up the box office.
When was Spielberg’s last box-office smash anyway?
It goes back to 2018, when Pentagon Papers and Ready Player One hit theaters within months of each other. The “small” film featuring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep grossed nearly $180 million on a $50 million official budget, while the sci‑fi blockbuster blasted to $607 million worldwide on an estimated $175 million budget.
Since then, the iconic filmmaker has rolled out two of the biggest flops of his career: West Side Story, which underperformed in 2021 with less than $80 million after a $100 million budget, and The Fabelmans, which earned $45 million against a $40 million budget in 2022. Disclosure Day was therefore highly anticipated, especially with the more obvious promise of a true return to science fiction from the director of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, War of the Worlds and E.T. the Extra‑terrestrial. Unfortunately, the magic doesn’t seem to translate with audiences.
DISCLOSURE DAY FLOPS
For its second weekend at the North American box office, Disclosure Day was of course crushed by the bulldozer Toy Story 5. So far, nothing shocking. The new Pixar opened atop the charts with $160 million across more than 4,420 theaters. Spielberg’s alien saga found itself in second place with only $17 million on more than 3,800 screens.
Disclosure Day having opened to around $44 million, that’s a drop of about 62%. Sure, that isn’t catastrophic next to some recent misses—Joker: Folie à Deux (-81%), The Marvels (-78%), Morbius (-73%), Kraven the Hunter (-72%), Madame Web (-61%) or Black Adam (-59%), or the recent Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu (-69%). But given that this is Spielberg, the result isn’t exactly comforting.
Disclosure Day looks pale next to Spielberg’s other sci‑fi titles like Minority Report (-40%), Ready Player One (-41%), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (-52%) and The War of the Worlds (-53%), or even Bridge of Spies (-26%) and The Terminal (-31%) in a different register. It sits closer to West Side Story (-65%) and The BFG (-58%), both of which had their share of misfires.
In other words: Disclosure Day doesn’t seem to benefit from Spielberg’s usual draw. The film, with a production budget before marketing of $115 million, has so far grossed $82 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $160 million. No, that doesn’t mean the studio has pocketed $45 million, because, as a reminder, a chunk of receipts goes back to the cinemas—roughly half of domestic grosses for a film of this scale.
According to Variety, Disclosure Day needs to climb to around $300 million at the box office to break even or, at least, to limit the damage. It’s far from clear that it will get there, especially in light of mixed audience reactions—and with the Toy Story 5 juggernaut already rolling and blockbuster season kicking into high gear with Supergirl, Minions and Monsters, the live‑action remake of Moana, The Odyssey and Spider‑Man: Brand New Day.
Maybe a sign of the times: Spielberg’s latest looks set to lag behind the earnings of newer voices like Obsession (over $330 million) and Backrooms (over $270 million), emblematic of a new wave of young directors. But beyond that facile comparison, there’s no denying it’s bad news to watch a fresh, original sci‑fi project flop so publicly—especially with a director of Spielberg’s stature. Because Hollywood reflexes are well documented, Disclosure Day could end up serving as a cautionary tale, pushing studios to take even fewer risks.
