Tom Cruise's overlooked action gem gets eclipsed by an icon's $115M sci-fi comeback at the box office

Right, if you want a proper snapshot of the film industry in 2026, it pretty much boils down to this: two big sci-fi films, thirteen years apart, both aimed for the stratosphere on the back of lavish visual effects and serious star wattage. Both, incidentally, risked absolute embarrassment—or glory—at the box office. The latest of the pair, Disclosure Day, is still doing the rounds in cinemas, but it’s already managed to outmuscle Tom Cruise’s underrated Oblivion when it comes to the US takings. No small feat, given that both had equally stiff competition eating away at their opening numbers.

Box Office Shootout: Disclosure Day vs Oblivion

Here’s how it shakes out:

• Disclosure Day has so far raked in $95.5 million in the US. That puts it ahead of Oblivion, which landed on $89 million back in 2013.
• Both films actually started out neck and neck in their opening weeks—no home run out of the gate, just steady money.
• Oblivion, released April 2013, faced a bizarre slate at the box office: Evil Dead, Scary Movie 5 first, then a brutal run-in with Iron Man 3, Pain & Gain, Star Trek Into Darkness, and, because this was still the Fast & Furious era (and apparently it never dies), Fast & Furious 6. Unsurprisingly, Oblivion’s final US tally wasn’t outrageous, but globally, it ended up with a respectable $287.9 million against a $120 million spend.
• Disclosure Day, for its part, is still jostling for screens with the likes of Obsession, Scary Movie 6, Backrooms, the completely unnecessary—but somehow inevitable—Masters of the Universe reboot, plus the latest expansion of Star Wars, this time involving The Mandalorian and Grogu, and even a film called Michael (yes, really) and the latest Furious.
• Internationally, though, the tables turn: Disclosure Day is about to wrap up with $100.4 million overseas, while Oblivion did a whopping $197 million outside the States. Totals: Disclosure Day is sitting at $197 million globally on a $115 million budget.
• For anyone keeping score—no, neither film is quite what the studios were probably dreaming of, since the break-even "rule of thumb" for Hollywood blockbusters is at least double your production costs. Profit is something you squint at in the distance, not a guarantee.

Does Star Power Still Actually Work?

Now, both titles owe a hefty part of their marketing spend to household names: Tom Cruise for Oblivion (who’s been his own genre for years), and the unstoppable Steven Spielberg behind Disclosure Day, giving the latter some proper event-cinema gloss. But as much as the studios hungrily advertised that fact, times have definitely changed: power has shifted thanks to social media, and streaming services have made audiences a fickler beast than ever. Even a megastar can’t bulldoze the release schedule.

Critical Reception: It’s Not All Rotten, For Once

On the reviews front, Disclosure Day seems to be doing rather well, actually. Rotten Tomatoes has it on 79% with critics, and a 70% audience score—not a masterpiece, but far from an embarrassment. Oblivion, on the other hand, sits at a distinctly average 53% and is considered one of the lesser moments in Tom’s filmography: 33rd out of the 44 features he’s fronted (unsurprisingly, no one seems desperate for a director’s cut).

What We’re Really Watching: Industry Shifts and Newcomers

Probably the most revealing bit of context here is what’s happening elsewhere at the box office. Backrooms and Obsession have come out of nowhere to make serious money, both directed by young filmmakers who learned their craft making shorts on YouTube. Spielberg himself even gave a nod to directors Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, saying:

Doesn’t get much more honest than that. In the end, today’s fresh faces with grassroots fanbases seem just as likely to pull in cinema crowds as the old masters, especially in an industry that loves reinventing itself nearly as much as it loves a massive CGI budget.

The Gist of Disclosure Day

For the record, Disclosure Day is less interstellar dogfights, more a modern paranoia thriller wrapped around the theme of what really happens when the human race is confronted with undeniable evidence of alien life. Just in case you assumed Spielberg was doing a rerun of Close Encounters—this one’s got its own angle.