MANILA, Philippines — The upcoming science-fiction film "Disclosure Day" marks the return of veteran director Steven Spielberg to the genre, as well as his first movie on aliens in about two decades.
"If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to eight billion people. We are coming close to ... Disclosure Day," goes a synopsis for the movie.
Starring in the movie coming out this June 10 are Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, and Colin Firth — all of them working with Spielberg for the first time except Domingo, who was in the filmmaker's 2012 movie "Lincoln."
The last sci-fi movie Spielberg directed was his 2018 adaptation of "Ready Player One," while his last film about aliens was his 2005 adaptation of "War of the Worlds" (unless one counts the fourth "Indiana Jones" movie that came out in 2008).
Within the genre, Spielberg is also best known for helming "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," and the first two "Jurassic Park" movies.
"Disclosure Day" will reunite the director with the writer of the latter two movies David Koepp, who also penned for Spielberg "War of the Worlds" and "Indiania Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
The two filmmakers will attempt to pose questions about human existence and what it takes to hide things from those living on Earth.
"During 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' I would say to myself: 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of this turned out to be true?'" Spielberg said in a statement. "Almost 50 years later, I'm now thinking: 'Wouldn't be it be wonderful for us to actually know that all of this is true?'"
The new movie originates from the director's endless fascination with the great unknowns of the cosmos, going as far back as his childhood.
Spielberg recalled one summer while living in New Jersey when his father took him to see the annual Perseid meteor shower.
"Overnight, I developed a real curiosity about what is happening up there in the stars, on some planet orbiting in any number of countless solar systems, and if one of them might have a civilization that was advanced enough to travel the universe," the director said.
Both "Disclosure Day" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," while not directly related, explore similar themes regarding extraterrestrial life and how forces governing the planet might be controlling the narrative around it.
Related: Ji Chang Wook, Jun Ji Hyun zombie film 'Colony' to screen in PH
"I really found my faith when I heard that the government was opposed to the film," Spielberg previously said in a 1978 interview after the release of the latter movie. "If NASA took the time to write me a 20-page letter, then I knew there must be something happening."
The director also called his upcoming movie as a reflection of current issues, noting how it touches on "misinformation and the challenge of finding truth in a culture when powerful people have tools to blur the lines of fact and fiction, of what is real and unreal, in service of protecting and advancing their agendas."
"[Disclosure Day] is a movie that also asks questions about what we do with truth that expands our understanding of the universe in a way that challenges the beliefs that give us meaning, including religion," said the Oscar winner.
He even referenced the popular series "The X-Files" and how it made people think about what would happen we find truth, "Can we accept it? Do we reject it? Will it bring us together or divide us further?"
"Ultimately, though, I think 'Disclosure Day' is a story about empathy as an extraordinary resource, and how it needs to be shared globally, with the entire world, not hoarded for self-interest or reserved for those closest to us," Spielberg ended. — Video from Universal Pictures Philippines' YouTube channel