The third-weekend read is brutal because it shows Disclosure Day did not stabilize after the second-weekend drop. Vulture had already pegged the problem: roughly $195M combined production/marketing cost and an estimated ~$300M worldwide break-even zone; after the collapse, it was sitting far below that trajectory.
Disclosure Day made only $8.1M domestic in weekend 3, down another 54% from weekend 2, and fell to #5. Domestic total is now about $94.4M, worldwide about $193.7M.
And with Minions & Monsters, opening Wednesday, July 1, positioned to own the Fourth of July frame, DD will be crushed by Minions… which is expected to be the clear commercial event of the weekend: Boxoffice Pro projects $75M–$85M for the 3-day weekend and $95M–$115M over the 5-day holiday window. That makes it the movie most likely to bury everything else, including whatever legs Disclosure Day had left.
Next, with Nolan's upcoming "Odyssey" shadow thereafter (July 17th)… chances are Disclosure's days are numbered.
Major/trade language is still cautious.
Variety, Deadline, THR, Guardian/EW-style coverage framed the opening as strong/solid: $44M domestic, ~$93M worldwide opening, best original Spielberg debut territory. Deadline called it the best-ever start for a Spielberg original, and THR described the $115M-budgeted film as having a “solid start.”
The harshest serious piece is Vulture, but even it mostly says “trouble,” (not “flop.”)
Vulture says the second-weekend 62% drop exposed a generational problem, notes the combined production/marketing cost around $195M, and says it likely needs about $300M worldwide to break even. That is effectively a “flop trajectory” argument, but the article does not seem to headline it as a flop.
Spielberg’s problem: original adult sci-fi, boomer-coded UFO disclosure premise, weak youth urgency, got eaten by modern franchise/viral/Gen-Z box office behavior.🤷♂️
Story
Disclosure Day’s Box Office Reveals a New Generation Gap
Posted by etherd0t
47 Comments
Hate to say it, but modern Spielberg just isn’t interesting these days.
Yea, West Side Story and Fablemans were excellent, they are just not movies I wanna go to the theaters for.
Movie was kinda ass
This is the first I’ve ever heard of it.
I went into it *wanting* to like it which should have been a red flag
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*Spielberg’s problem: original adult sci-fi, boomer-coded UFO disclosure premise*
Funny when I read this, the 1985 movie Cocoon (dir Ron Howard) popped into my head.
The fact that it just wasn’t very good probably had something to do with it. Going to the movies is so expensive now. People aren’t going to pay all that to see a mediocre film.
It’s landing about where I’d expect given the movie overall. It wasn’t mind-blowing, it wasn’t awful. I’d definitely say it’s boomer-coded per OP, that moment at the end when everyone is paying rapt attention to what’s happening had a type of earnestness that simply wouldn’t exist anymore. I wouldn’t say it took me out really, but it was just notable in a “oh, wow, they really think there’s a world where this could unfold in such a way – that’s cute” way.
Who would’ve thunk a movie abt how only traditional news outlets are valid would’ve done badly in the current environmen
movie was kinda mid
Spielberg had his heyday 30 years ago but he refuses to evolve with the times like most older directors. The only big name director I see who tends to not fall into this trap and crank out good work is Sir Ridley Scott
I liked it a lot (Spielberg’s 2020s films is the most interesting run he’s had since the 2000s), but the film being divisive at best amongst almost everyone else who saw it might explain the short legs as much as the other factors.
I expected this movie to be huge, or at least for it to be really good. I mean, I did enjoy watching it a lot, but nothing about the movie makes any sense! It was such a missed opportunity.
It’s not a generational problem. The movie isn’t very good.
Anecdotal and I can’t speak for Gen Z, but every Millennial and Gen X I know thinks this looks like shit. The only person who told me they want to see it is my dad….who is in his 70s
My 91-year-old grandma went to see it.
Oh I was going to see it this weekend
The movie wasn’t awful but it both treads water in the middle for too long and ends badly imo
I saw the trailer for Disclosure Day and it just looked like something that would have come out in the 90s when the whole alien/govt conspiracy stuff was everywhere in media.
“DD will be crushed by Minions.”
The word of mouth was that it wasn’t that great and much more of a ‘wait to stream’ movie than a theatrical must. That’s not generational, that’s recession economics.
Saw it on opening night and went in completely blind because we love aliens and Spielberg directed Jaws for gods sake.
It was AWFUL. Blaming this on a “generation gap” misses the point that this is a very bad movie.
I wanted to see it because it was Spielberg but the trailer looked like ass and I waited for reviews that confirmed it was kinda ass. So I saved myself and my partner from the $100 date night
I was gonna see it (same with supergirl, I was excited for that) I’m just fuckin broke.
Everyone is a critic nowadays…literally lol I’ve seen so many bad reviews on TikTok about this it just convinced me not to go see it 😅
The only person I know who wanted to see it was my 71 year old father.
I think I was one of the few people who actually liked this movie. Lol
It’s not good, but it was fun to laugh and make fun of in the theaters.
Anyone also just tired of going to the theatre?
I’m usually ok with waiting for digital release at this point. That way I can enjoy it in the peace and quiet of my home, don’t have to worry about the occasional asshat talking or playing around on their phone at max brightness during the film… and I don’t miss a second of the movie if I go to the restroom.
So, short of a movie that has an intense visual experience or expected blockbuster, I just don’t want to go to the movie theatres anymore.
Does the fact that in the leadup to this release we have also been incessantly told by Trump and his cronies that soon they will release UFO/ET truths and that may have also tainted it?
What if we stop making boring movies that need $300 million just to break even?
Damn I was looking forward to this one.
what a bummer. easily one of my favourites of the year, i’ve already seen it twice. an absolutely big and beautiful movie, the kind of hollywood movie you thought they gave up making in the 2000s.
It’s a god-awful movie that’s why
Is it a generation problem or is it simply audiences not liking the movie?
The movie was terrible in so many ways. The plot was laughably contrived. The characters were all completely flat. There was no reason to care about any of them. The action sequences were looney tunes levels of ridiculous. The technology was so dated it made the movie seem like it was filmed in 2001. Even the sound mixing was bad. I’ve never once thought about the sound mixing of a film before but it was glaring in Disclosure Day. Rustling leaves were as loud as explosions and you could almost see the unconventional objects they were using to create the sounds because they just didn’t match what was happening on screen. Oh, and aliens only make a cameo in this alien movie.
This movie isn’t a box office success because it’s a steaming pile of shit.
I heard *nothing* about this film until it was in cinemas. No ads nothing.
It was terrible
I could tell from the trailers that this film was pure Spielberg schmaltz. He already struck UFO /aliens gold with Close Encounters and E.T. Both are post-modern, Hollywood-centric fantasy tropes depicting Aliens as our wiser cousins.
I was hoping he’d abandon that fantasy and navigate a more haunting idea about Extraterrestrial life, like something involving the Fermi Paradox
Maybe start by hiring anybody but Emily Blunt with her mid acting and expressionless frozen face as the lead????
The movie felt like a Spielberg movie but nothing I hadnt seen before
This is a terrible movie, end of story.
I thought it was thoroughly mediocre. That being said, people aren’t showing up for mediocre movies as often, as they don’t have enough money to justify spending 3 hours watching a movie, especially one that people aren’t giving great reviews for.
People will show up to blockbusters like Spider-Man because they have universal popularity, which this did not.
I was interested in seeing it until multiple friends told me it was bad soooo I think their PR overhyped it as being his “best film in 20 years” or whatever they were saying and then people saw and realized that was not the case
The movie just wasn’t very good. The writing/screenplay was awful and no amount of Spielbergian direction could save it (and it certainly wasn’t his best showing either)
This movie was “creaky” even the spinning camera seemed forced and brittle. I mean 100m domestic isn’t flop for this budget. It’s fine he’s old. Be cheaper next time.
Disclosure Day was so fucking ass. I was so excited but that script is an absolute mess. Terrible story. Terrible effects.
It was SO BAD like not Covid War of the Worlds bad but on that kind of trajectory. Blows my mind people thought the reporter at the end was good… like wtf SO and I were actively laughing through her ‘reporting’. It might have been ok if it came out 30 years ago… maybe