While Disclosure Day has had a strong opener for an original film, several box office predictions suggest that the sci-fi Steven Spielberg flick could struggle to make a profit on ticket sales alone. Featuring a star-studded cast with Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo, the Universal Pictures movie has been pitched as Spielberg’s modern response to his prior UFO-centric work, namely 1982’s E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film leans heavily into the recent declassification of U.S. government documents concerning aliens and unidentified objects. The good news is that Disclosure Day doesn’t have a lofty budget so it will have an easier time breaking even, but it’s arrival comes amid a theatrical schedule crowded with multiple blockbusters that could make the film less leggy than expected.
Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day has a tough road ahead
The break-even point for Disclosure Day is estimated to be around $287 million to $300 million, given a reported production budget of $115 million by Puck. Under normal circumstances, a movie needs to make 2.5 times its budget to make a profit.
On top of that, Universal has spent an additional $80 million on marketing, according to Slash Film, meaning that the movie will need to make about $390 million at the box office to break even since theaters tend to keep about half of the revenue from ticket sales. But the lower $287 million benchmark is more relevant here since the film is expected to make up the difference through VOD, streaming, and physical sales after its theatrical run.
As of June 18, Disclosure Day has earned a total of $104 million at the global box office, with $54.5 million coming domestically and $49.4 million coming internationally. So the film is already a third of the way there to its estimated $300 million goal.
However, a couple of box office forecasts expect Disclosure Day to diminish in its second weekend from its $44.5 million domestic opener. A prediction from a June 17 report from BoxOfficeTheory has it earning roughly $21.4 million (a 52% reduction from its debut), a figure shared by BoxOffice Pro that estimates it bringing in somewhere between $17 million and $22 million in its sophomore outing. That said, as long as the film appeals to audiences over the next month or so, it could eventually become a box office hit in a similar fashion to Project Hail Mary earlier this year.
For better and worse, the latter report notes that Disclosure Day has a “more adult-leaning tone” that leans toward mature audiences. This could help spare the movie as it faces off against a slew of family-friendly blockbusters, including the box office juggernaut that is Toy Story 5 arriving on June 19, the DCU superhero flick Supergirl coming out on June 26, and the Illumination animated sequel Minions & Monsters releasing on July 1. Other competitors include Young Washington (July 3), Evil Dead Burn (July 10), and the live-action Moana (July 10), all of which could crowd out Disclosure Day with the sheer number of options at cinemas.
Thus far, younger moviegoers are not as intrigued to see Disclosure Day, with the report remarking that “while older audiences might find their way to theaters in the coming weeks, we see limited appeal from younger demos for the original sci-fi title.” It further notes that only 14% of its audience come from those between the ages of 18 and 24 and that its under-17 audience is “virtually nonexistent,” despite the film being rated PG-13.
Its narrow appeal is apparent with its ‘B’ Cinemascore, a rating that gauges audience awareness and interest from a scale that goes from ‘A’ to ‘F.’ Recent films that have received a ‘B’ Cinemascore include Masters of the Universe, In The Grey, Hokum, and I Love Boosters, none of which made huge splashes at the box office. So despite high review scores, its positive word-of-mouth is modest at best.
