Summer is in full swing and while big franchise names like The Mandalorian and Grogu and Masters of the Universe aren’t making waves as much as films like Obsession and Backrooms, titles like Scary Movie are bringing audiences in. So, can Steven Spielberg’s newest alien-themed conspiracy film continue that momentum? Our Chris Bumbray predicted Spielberg’s name, the star power of Emily Blunt, and the intriguing trailers should allow the film to take the top spot at the box office this weekend with around $40 million.
Deadline is reporting that estimates for early Thursday previews has Disclosure Day collecting $12 million worldwide, with somewhere around $6 million being made domestically. While Bumbray predicts $40 million for the weekend, other projections top off at $65 million globally. The new genre outing from Steven Spielberg has an aggregate critic rating of 82%, which are higher than his sci-fi films, War of the Worlds (with a 76%) and A.I. (also with 76%), but don’t quite reach the height of other films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (with 91%) and Minority Report (with a 89%).
We have two reviews on the site that have different reactions, with our Chris Bumbray giving it a somber 6/10, saying, “Is Disclosure Day perfect? No. There are some hokey ‘Shia LaBeouf swinging on a jungle vine’ moments, and at over 140 minutes it’s undeniably overstuffed. Yet it still contains its fair share of compelling sequences, and Spielberg’s sense of momentum remains second to none. More importantly, it wears its heart on its sleeve, and in a world increasingly dominated by assembly-line blockbusters, that’s worth celebrating even if it could have been better.”
We also have a review from our own Michael Conway, which was more enthusiastic at an 8/10, saying, “I’m not saying Disclosure Day doesn’t have issues. It’s long. It has some clunky moments and a few visual effects that should have looked better. But it’s also thrilling, emotional, strange, funny, and full of that old Spielberg magic. It’s a movie through and through, but when it really matters, it becomes a film. And when I walked out, I said the same thing to myself I told my manager at the movie theater 25 years ago when exiting A.I.: ‘that was a beautiful film.’ And I can say this for certain: this will probably be Tom DeLonge’s favorite flick ever.”