Steven Spielberg’s return to sci-fi is heading home. After a healthy box-office run, Disclosure Day is now available to rent online, with 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD editions landing on Aug. 25. And to sweeten the physical release, a fresh behind-the-scenes clip finally sheds light on one of the movie’s most slippery mysteries: what exactly are Margaret’s powers?
For the record, this is Spielberg’s first sci-fi action outing since 2018’s Ready Player One — and, before that, 2005’s War of the Worlds. Critics have framed it as his closest swing in decades at the wonder of 1980s touchstones like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
In the story, alien visitors gift two humans extraordinary abilities as a prelude to revealing themselves to the world. John O’Connor’s character can intuitively understand math and machines. Margaret, played by Olivia Blunt, gets something far harder to define — and arguably far more dangerous. She’s an empath who can lock eyes with someone and instantly absorb everything about them.
In the bonus clip, Blunt explains that the power was never meant to work the same way twice. “There’s different iterations of these abilities, like when she eye-locks with someone,” she says. “I think we’ve experimented with different versions depending on who she’s eye-locking with and how comfortable she is with these powers. When she’s able to drop in on them and read everything, and everything that causes them pain or joy. It can be deliberate, or it can be happenstance, or it can surprise her, or it can surprise the person. That shapeshifts throughout the course of the film as well.”
That deliberate looseness is a smart bit of craft. Rather than pinning Margaret’s telepathy to a rigid rulebook — the trap so many superpower movies fall into — the film lets the ability evolve alongside her confidence, sometimes weaponized on purpose, sometimes triggered by accident. It’s a more human take on a supernatural gift, and the interview makes clear that ambiguity was the point.
The physical release comes stacked with extras for anyone who wants to dig deeper:
- “Encountering the Unknown: Inside Disclosure Day” — a 50-minute documentary featuring Spielberg, Blunt, and the rest of the cast
- A dedicated featurette on Spielberg’s long partnership with composer John Williams, who scored the film
- The behind-the-scenes clip breaking down Margaret’s powers
If you’d rather not wait for the disc, the movie is already streaming as a digital rental. But for the full package — documentary, Williams tribute, and pristine 4K image included — the shelf date to circle is Aug. 25.
