Early Tracking Spells Trouble: Disclosure Day Set for a Lukewarm Box Office Debut

Well, Steven Spielberg’s back in the saucer business, but his latest sci-fi outing, Disclosure Day, might not land quite as triumphantly as E.T. in the hedgerow. The box office prophets have already had a crack at the numbers, and, frankly, the early buzz is looking less blockbusting, more ‘decent telly on a rainy Saturday’.

The Story: Aliens, Panic, and Some Very Odd Linguistics

This time, the Spielberg spaceship lands in Kansas City, where Emily Blunt plays meteorologist Margaret Fairchild. Margaret isn’t reading the weather—she’s suddenly jabbering away in some cryptic alien tongue, at which point global panic ensues. If you were expecting a family-friendly E.T. or a dreamy Close Encounters, think again. Disclosure Day goes in for government cover-ups and psychological operations, as a whistleblower (Josh O'Connor as Daniel Kellner) races to stay a step ahead of a big corporate fixer—Colin Firth’s Noah Scanlon, who’s all business and very little heart.

The Numbers: Could Go Either Way

If you’re wondering whether this is going to be Spielberg’s next mega-hit, the predictions are a tad lukewarm. According to BoxOfficeTheory (who crunched the numbers mid-May), Disclosure Day is projected to pull in somewhere between $45 million and $59 million on its domestic opening weekend. That’s for 12-14 June 2026, courtesy of Universal Pictures (yes, mark your calendars, it's a packed summer).

Honestly, that opening isn’t enormous compared to some of the other tentpoles on the horizon:

• Project Hail Mary: $80 million
• Michael: $97 million
• Scream 7: $63 million
• The Devil Wears Prada 2: $76 million
• Pixar’s Hoppers: $45 million on opening, but then ballooned to $371 million worldwide (bit of a sleeper hit situation there)
• Wuthering Heights: $32 million on release, $241 million worldwide (not half bad for miserable weather and haunted moors)

So, Disclosure Day isn’t looking disastrous, but let’s just say it’s not top of the class, either.

What About the Budget?

There’s still a big unknown here: no-one knows the production budget yet. For context, Spielberg’s recent big-budget projects have mostly landed somewhere between $100 million and $185 million. See: Ready Player One ($175m), West Side Story ($100m), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($185m). Generally, for a film to break even, it needs to rake in about 2.5 times its budget. If Disclosure Day is playing in that same financial ballpark, it’s got its work cut out just to keep the accountants happy.

For reference: Ready Player One did $583 million worldwide—yet its domestic opening was similar to these new projections ($41 million). Meanwhile, West Side Story fell short, only making $76 million full stop.

Spielberg and Blunt: Wildcards or Sure Things?

The report is still fairly upbeat about the film’s chances with the general public. Spielberg’s name in giant letters above the title has always been a draw, and Emily Blunt’s joined at just the right time in her career. Plus, if the marketing sticks and the advance presales (starting 27 May) are strong, box office fortunes might tick up a bit before opening day.

Here’s the rub, though: original stories with no underlying franchise or best-selling book have a habit of opening within a certain (often modest) range. No big IP, no built-in fanbase. Moviemaking’s a weird business, and it’s not getting any easier to break through.

The Competition: A Bit of a Squeeze

Disclosure Day is rated PG-13 and is very much pitched at the older science fiction crowd, but it’s being launched into a crowded week. Pixar’s Toy Story 5 drops just seven days after, followed by Supergirl (26 June), and then Minions & Monsters (1 July). In short, family-friendly giants everywhere you look, all gunning for a slice of the summer box office pie. It could help that Disclosure Day is more of an adult drama, but the sheer volume of competition makes it much harder to convince those casual punters to give it a go over the school holidays.

The lesson here—keep your eyes peeled for the marketing blitz, and if the early critics are kind, word-of-mouth is going to be crucial. If it can’t break through in that first month, it’ll be in danger of disappearing completely (and, presumably, so will any hopes for a sequel).

A Bit of Sizzle

Spielberg did share a few new snippets at ComicCon back in April—a bit of action, a train escape, government agents, Blunt and O'Connor crashing through farmhouses. It all sounds very Spielbergian, if somewhat grittier than his past alien escapades.

BoxOfficeTheory verdict: 'The iconic filmmaker's most commercially accessible release for multiple demographics since his 2018 adaptation of Ready Player One.'

Personally, I’ll be there opening weekend if only to see Spielberg try something a little more paranoid and strange (and to see Colin Firth as a suit with a sinister brief). Just don’t be shocked if Disclosure Day ends up fighting for our attention with a talking action figure and some very cheerful yellow blobs.