When it comes to the 2026 movie release schedule, we might not see a better alien movie after Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, but there’s something somewhat ironic I noticed while watching the alien-centric tale. In the entire 145-minute runtime, the word “alien” itself is never uttered by a single character. So, I had to ask the screenwriter about it. During CinemaBlend’s interview with David Koepp, he confirmed with me that my observation about the word alien in Disclosure Day was very astute, and responded with:Thank you for noticing, because it's easier to take it not as seriously… ‘Aliens’ also has a second meaning in terms of immigration. And we didn't want anyone to be able to dismiss anything or be distracted. So we use ‘extraterrestrial’, we use ‘biological life forms,' ‘non-human biologics.' There's a number of other terms that we use instead.I thought I might be on to something! Disclosure Day takes place in the modern-day United States in a very grounded context, and it sounds like the screenwriter wanted it to feel like the movie itself was taking the implications of life outside of Earth earnestly, and one reason they felt like they could was by not using the word “alien.” Then, there’s the fact that the word “alien” has become a politically controversial word in the past few decades in references to U.S. immigrants. It makes sense why Koepp and Steven Spielberg might have wanted to distance themselves from the politics of the word “alien” and instead use other words to describe life beyond the species on our planet. I know, I definitely felt that it grounded the film. More On Disclosure Day(Image credit: Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment/Lucasfilm)The More I Think About Disclosure Day, The More It Reminds Me Of Indiana Jones 4Disclosure Day came from an idea Steven Spielberg had when following what was happening in 2023 around whistleblower David Grusch, who advocated for government transparency on UFOs after his experience as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Air Force. Grusch also deliberately chose not to use the word “alien” (or even “extraterrestrial”) when talking about his own claims in order to frame things away from sounding so science fiction. Before Spielberg knew it, he had a 52-page treatment, whom he decided to send over to the screenwriter behind Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Koepp told us he was blown away by Spielberg’s ideas, and immediately thought it would work because the Disclosure Day ending already did straight away. Spielberg and Koepp’s collaboration ended up being an intense one that took 42 drafts to get right before production got started with the likes of Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo.But it sounds like it’s worth it, given the high praise the movie has received before debuting at No. 1 at the box office a couple of weeks ago. It definitely feels like a carefully written script and the "alien" detail does make a difference. You can check out Disclosure Day for yourself in theaters now!