Steven Spielberg did more than make us afraid of the water with "Jaws."
He helped create what we now call the Summer Movie Season. His 1975 blockbuster, combined with "Star Wars" two years later, taught Hollywood to treat summer like a smorgasbord for young moviegoers.
Action! Adventure! Sharks! Jedis! The industry never looked back.
Except the newest "Star Wars" movie, "The Mandalorian and Grogu," is sinking like a stone at the box office. Audiences care far more about indie horror stories than a cuddly Baby Yoda.
Now, it's Spielberg's turn to goose the summer movie box office. The director's newest film, "Disclosure Day," opens June 12. The sci-fi thriller, starring Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo and Colin Firth, connects to one of the director's earliest hits - "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Call it a spiritual sequel.
Yes, he's in alien territory again, although most of the movie's plot remains under wraps.
Can Spielberg command the summer like he once did? The early box office predictions suggest neither a yes or a no, merely a shoulder shrug. "Disclosure Day" is looking at an opening weekend haul in the $40-50 million range.
That's a solid figure for most movies. Not a Spielberg production, and certainly not one gunning for summer movie glory. It's becoming the New Normal for a man once synonymous with big-screen blockbusters.
- "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
- "E.T."
- "Jurassic Park"
- "War of the Worlds"
- "Saving Private Ryan"
Those days appear over. The 79-year-old's last film, the autobiographical drama "The Fabelmans," earned a mere $17 million stateside four years ago. A Steven Spielberg origin story couldn't rally his fans to theaters.
His previous film, the 2021 remake of "West Side Story," also under-performed to the tune of $38 million.
"Ready Player One," which should have been a Spielbergian blockbuster, topped out at $137 million in US theaters in 2018. (It performed dramatically better overseas, mostly thanks to Chinese theaters)
"The Post" (2017) and "The BFG" (2016) also delivered less than impressive figures.
Today, the number of directors whose very name draws a crowd is limited. Christopher Nolan rushes to mind, from his Oscar-winning "Oppenheimer" to this summer's "The Odyssey." The latter is already a pre-release sales sensation.
James Cameron ("Avatar") and Quentin Tarantino rush to mind, and both take their sweet time between movie releases.
Spielberg's name once stood above them all. If "Disclosure Day" truly marks a return to creative form, word of mouth might put him back in that conversation once more. It helps that his latest film arrives with plenty of real-world buzz. The UFO question has been on our minds for months now, with various stories suggesting we've already been visited by extraterrestrial creatures.
Spielberg himself is leaning into that notion during his promotional interviews.
My view has become more realistic," he said. "There's a lot of mystery and things that are undisclosed but I've become more optimistic that people are going to be able to discover things that we have not been allowed to discover.
He hasn't lost his ability to hawk a feature film, still a showman at heart. Can he make us all believers? We'll see starting on June 12.
