Steven Spielberg is one of the best to ever do it. The man literally created the summer blockbuster with Jaws more than 50 years ago. Ever since, he’s been one of cinema’s most respected, beloved hit-makers. Now, Spielberg is back and he’s back with aliens! For the first time in a long time, he’s made an original alien movie in the form of Disclosure Day. Audiences were excited about it, providing Spielberg with another feather in his cap over the weekend.
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Disclosure Day debuted at number one at the box office, with an estimated $44 million domestically. It also added a healthy $48.8 million internationally for a global start of $92.8 million. It easily toppled the prior weekend’s champion, Scary Movie, which plummeted 73% in its second frame with $14.5 million.
Circling back to the Spielberg of it all, this gives the Oscar-winning director his 18th number one movie. The rest of Spielberg’s number ones include Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Color Purple, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Hook, Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ready Player One, West Side Story.
That puts some more distance between himself and the second-closest filmmaker on that list. It’s frankly not all that close. Ron Howard (Cocoon) and Ridley Scott (Alien) each have 12 and Michael Bay (Ambulance) has 11. It would take a lot for them to catch Spielberg and it seems unlikely at this point. This truly helps illustrate that Spielberg is truly in a class of his own.
As for Disclosure Day’s financial prospects, it carries a $115 million production budget. So it will need to leg out for Universal Pictures in order to achieve profitability theatrically. Fortunately, critics have generally been kind to the movie. Audiences are a bit more mixed. It’s all going to come down to word of mouth in the coming weeks. Fortunately, sci-fi tends to play very well overseas, which should help its case.
The movie centers on the race to release information about the existence of aliens to the world. It stars Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place), Josh O’Connor (Challengers, The Crown), Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, Kingsman), Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters, The Perfect Couple) and Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Rustin).
Meanwhile, Obsession continued to defy expectations, coming in at number two for the weekend with $19 million in its fifth frame. Curry Barker’s low-budget phenomenon has now made $286 million worldwide. It’s going to break $300 million easy and $400 million isn’t off the table. It’s nothing shy of remarkable.
Looking ahead, horror is taking a couple of weekends off as Toy Story 5 and Supergirl debut in the coming weeks. The next big horror movie hits theaters in the form of Evil Dead Burn on July 10.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
