Steven Spielberg’s 2026 sci-fi film Disclosure Day took an unusually long road to the screen, with the screenplay going through 42 drafts before filming began. According to screenwriter David Koepp, the project started in the summer of 2023, when Spielberg began outlining the story in the Notes app on his iPad. That initial idea developed into a 52-page treatment, which Spielberg then sent to Koepp, a longtime collaborator known for his work on Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Koepp said his first reaction to Spielberg’s treatment was excitement at how fully the filmmaker committed to the alien concept. He was especially struck by the ending, which he felt already worked well in early form because it gave the characters a strong, compelling goal. After reviewing Spielberg’s notes, Koepp was invited to continue shaping the screenplay and accepted immediately.
While Spielberg and Koepp have collaborated on several iconic films, Koepp described Spielberg as demanding but encouraging in the writing process. For Disclosure Day, the pair kept revising the script until they felt the story was ready for production. The most difficult element to perfect, Koepp said, was the character Margaret. He explained that she remained interesting from the beginning, but the challenge was making sure her unusual abilities and behavior had emotional depth rather than just visual or narrative novelty.
Margaret’s role required extensive attention because the filmmakers wanted to explore how the extraordinary events of the story would affect her as a human being. Koepp said they focused not only on what cool things the character could do, but also on what those experiences would do to her emotionally over the course of the film. Questions about how she would break down, what she would suffer, and how she would psychologically respond became central to the writing process. That deeper emotional development, he said, took time and was likely the main reason the script needed so many drafts.
The article suggests that the long writing process may have reflected Spielberg’s desire to deliver a strong return to alien storytelling after two decades away from the genre. Rather than rushing into production, the filmmakers repeatedly refined the material to ensure the final version balanced spectacle with character-driven emotion. Koepp’s comments also imply that the script’s success depended on getting Margaret right, since she became one of the film’s most memorable parts and has been highlighted in reviews as a standout performance.
Disclosure Day is now in theaters, and audiences can judge for themselves how Spielberg’s latest science fiction film compares with his earlier work in the genre.
