Steven Spielberg Announces New UFO Movie For Summer 2026

Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment have announced a new movie directed by Steven Spielberg, set to be released May 15th, 2026. While the title and plot are still unknown, it was first reported by Variety that the iconic director was working on an original UFO story. The studio described this upcoming movie as an “event film”.

Steven Spielberg will reunite with long-time collaborator David Koepp, who worked as a screenwriter on Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Kristie Macosko Krieger will produce, they previously worked together on West Side Story and The Fabelmans.

In truth, a new Steven Spielberg movie is always an event. The director is considered to be the father of the summer blockbuster since he released Jaws in 1975, which was a huge $470 million worldwide hit. Before that, it was believed that movies worked better at the box office if they were released in winter.

With Jaws but also E.T. (1982) or Jurassic Park (1993), Spielberg became entirely affiliated with the notion of summer blockbuster and proved that movies could also bring a huge audience to the theaters in the summer.

His most recent summer blockbuster was The BFG in 2016, and it wasn’t exactly a critical success. After that, the director released 4 more movies, including Ready Player One and The Post. The latter earned him two Oscar nominations.

With this upcoming UFO project, it really does feel like Spielberg is returning to his roots, especially considering the fact that he previously explored this theme in Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1977), E.T., War of the Worlds (2005), but also in some of his biggest production hits like Super 8, directed by J. J. Abrams and released in 2011.