Emily Blunt in 'Disclosure Day' trailer
Screenshot via Universal Pictures

Steven Spielberg just confirmed that 'Disclosure Day' is the final instalment in a trilogy of films that took him decades to complete.

His new film 'Disclosure Day' is being framed as the capstone of a thematic trilogy that began with 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and continued in 'E.T.'

The links 'Disclosure Day's emotional stakes to his lifelong fascination with the prospect of intelligent life beyond Earth, and that he would embrace worldwide, public confirmation.

'I would be actually quite grateful,' he told USA Today.

Spielberg has repeatedly asked audiences to consider what extraterrestrial life would mean for humanity, and that goes well beyond his 'alien trilogy.' He explored the same prospect in 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull', 'War of the Worlds', and 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence'.

Spielberg Explains His Fascination with Aliens

Spielberg credited his late mother Leah Adler for shaping his openness to the idea: 'She always said, "Let's not be conceited to think that we're the only intelligent life in the universe,"' the director recalled, adding that she also encouraged him to 'open up our hearts and minds,' an approach that has since steered his films toward wonder rather than fear.

'When I made "Close Encounters," I needed a lot of imagination,' he explained. 'I believed there was other life out there, although I wasn't quite sure if it had come here. I was really curious about UFOs and UAPs. I said, "I'm not going to call 'Close Encounters' science fiction – I'm going to call it science speculation."'

'Since the beginning of the 21st century, there's been more and more access to the actual visual truth,' he continued. 'We're able to confirm our belief by showing what we shot on our devices to other people. It's just become overwhelming to me that we're not alone in the universe.'

Contrasting 'Disclosure Day' and 'E.T.'s Themes

Reflecting on whether an actual alien encounter would provoke a different response now than it would have 50 years ago, Spielberg chose optimism and invoked childhood belief. 'Drew [Barrymore] had complete belief in 'E.T.' When I saw that kind of belief a child has, I wondered, "Is it only children that can believe in extraterrestrial life, or is it possible that we are all still children in the nether reaches of our souls?"'

If 'Disclosure Day's tone and premise seem foreboding and pessimistic by comparison, it's because Spielberg frames the narrative as presenting consolidated evidence within the film's fictional world, noting that his characters 'essentially lay out all the evidence that aliens are real, like, 'This is everything we've got.''

He positions that fictional cataloguing of proof as part of the film's intent to mirror real-world debates about documentation and disclosure, implying the movie asks viewers to weigh accumulated data rather than rely solely on conjecture.

Is 'Disclosure Day' Spielberg's Final 'Alien' Movie?

Spielberg described 'Disclosure Day' as the culmination of three self-contained stories, which does not in any way diminish his interest in the topic. He frames the new film as a milestone rather than a definitive conclusion, signalling continued creative and intellectual engagement with speculative questions.

Asked whether 'Disclosure Day' serves is his final statement on extraterrestrials, Spielberg reiterates the film's role within a trilogy while refusing to close the subject: 'It's a summation in the trilogy of 'Close Encounters', 'E.T.' and now 'Disclosure Day,' he confirmed. But it's not going to end my curiosity – it's not going to end my love for science fiction.'

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