Steven Spielberg’s next movie is only two years away – although we don’t know much about it other than that.
Variety reports today that Spielberg’s next project, described only as a “new original event film,” will hit theaters on May 15, 2026. The movie, which is backed by Universal Pictures, will reunite Spielberg with an old creative partner: screenwriter David Koepp, who previously worked with the legendary filmmaker on Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As THR notes, those films made more than $3 billion worldwide combined.
Koepp is also writing the upcoming new Jurassic World film, which Spielberg is producing through his Amblin Entertainment.
Universal didn’t reveal what Spielberg’s new film will be about, but we can glean some hints through previous reports. Variety reported back in April that Spielberg was working on a “UFO film based on his own original idea,” with Koepp set to write the screenplay.
A UFO project would certainly fit that bill of “event film” – though, so would most Spielberg movies. An exception, though, would be Spielberg’s most recent film, The Fabelmans, the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama that scooped up seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
It would also be far from Spielberg’s first cinematic brush with extraterrestrials, joining a list that already includes Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and the aforementioned War of the Worlds.
It was also revealed in 2022 that Spielberg was set to work on a Bullitt reboot starring Bradley Cooper, although that project was set up at Warner Bros., and we haven’t gotten any updates on that since then.
Thumbnail credit: Presley Ann/Getty Images for TCM
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
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