Hollywood Suddenly Taking UFOs Seriously, With Rival “Disclosure” Projects in the Works (Exclusive)

A "historically anchored" Roswell movie is coming, while filmmakers ranging from Steven Spielberg to Joseph Kosinski tout upcoming UAP-themed titles: "This movie is going to blow people's minds." Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment It’s quietly become a trendy new genre in Hollywood: The serious UFO movie. An invasion of projects across the narrative and documentary space are exploring the topic of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), including prestige films from Steven Spielberg and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. While movies about spacecraft and aliens are as old as filmmaking, this wave is heavily influenced by a perhaps unprecedented level of media, lawmakers and public interest in videos and discussion of “UAPs” that has included congressional hearings on the subject, the emergence of government whistleblowers, and the release of much-debated Navy footage of objects some claim defy the laws of physics. Related Stories General News After 'F1: The Movie,' Damson Idris Gets Green Light to Join Formula 1 as Global Brand Ambassador Guest Column Coppola, Lucas and Spielberg Rewrote Hollywood's Rules in the Chaotic 70s. Who's Doing That Now? The truth, in other words, has gone from being “out there” to feeling just around the corner. The latest project in the mix: Producer and podcaster Bryce Zabel (Dark Skies, Taken) has just packaged a film with UTA that’s billed as “the most grounded, historically anchored” look at the 1947 Roswell incident yet. Sylvain White (The Boys, Fargo) is attached to direct. Titled Unidentified, the fact-based tale moves across three timelines: The infamous 1947 incident where the U.S. Air Force announced — then quickly retracted — that it had recovered a “flying disc,” a 1990s narrative focusing on Roswell investigators racing to secure testimony from witnesses and a present-day murder mystery looking into mysterious deaths related to the incident. The film focuses on nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman and author Donald Schmitt, who endeavored to figure out “the truth” behind the story. The film is partly based on Witness to Roswell, which Schmitt wrote with Thomas Carey. “Roswell no longer feels like folklore — it feels like unfinished business,” says Zabel, who just launched an iHeart podcast on the UAP topic titled Sound, Light & Frequency. “Instead of seeing Roswell as pop culture, our whole package — script, director, IP — treats it like a crime scene. This isn’t a movie about little green men. This is about what happens to ordinary people when the impossible crashes into their lives. These two researchers are American heroes who never gave up and found hundreds of witnesses to this event.” And then there are the heavy hitters wading into this: Spielberg has his Universal film Disclosure Day, about the global panic and societal upheaval when humanity receives undeniable proof that aliens exist. While Jerry Bruckheimer is producing a UFO disclosure thriller for Apple Original Films, directed by Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), that’s been described as a “UFO-themed All the President’s Men.” Congressional UAP whistleblower David Grusch is attached as a consultant on the Kosinski film. There’s even a new reboot of The X-Files in the works for Hulu with Sinners writer-director Ryan Coogler. “This topic is fascinating and it’s been fun to find people who are really into it, because it’s a hole you can disappear into when you’re talking to the people who are in the middle of it,” Kosinski tells The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s so much information that is not public yet about various things. This movie is going to blow people’s minds.” To some extent, minds have already been a bit blown — or at least perplexed — by real-world events. Last year, a buzzy documentary, filmmaker Dan Farah’s The Age of Disclosure, contained interviews with 34 current and former government officials discussing UAPs. The film reportedly broke Prime Video’s VOD record for its highest-grossing documentary of all time when it dropped in November. And in the last two weeks, Barack Obama made global headlines for casually saying aliens are “real” — before clarifying he meant aliens likely exist somewhere in the universe. His remarks spurred Donald Trump to raise eyebrows by claiming Obama had revealed classified information, and the president then announced on Feb. 20 he would declassify and release files related to UFOs/UAPs. “The zeitgeist of our moment right now is the UFO, UAP reality issue,” Zabel says. “I think we are seeing more and more projects come forward because people are now becoming aware for the first time that this is a serious thing and it’s not crazy. You couldn’t hav