Josh O’Connor to star alongside Emily Blunt in mystery project from Steven Spielberg

Josh O’Connor has joined the cast of the untitled film from Steven Spielberg, where he will star alongside Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer), Colin Firth (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Colman Domingo (Euphoria) and Eve Hewson (Hedda).

We don’t know much about the project itself, only that it’s said to be a UFO movie based on Spielberg’s own original idea, with David Koepp (Jurassic Park) writing the screenplay. A UFO movie from the man who gave us Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and War of the Worlds is pretty much all I need to know. Bring it on. Universal Pictures has already slated the project for a May 15, 2026 release.

O’Connor recently starred alongside Zendaya and Mike Faist in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. He’s also set to appear in Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. The star-studded cast includes Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc alongside Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Chuch.

Spielberg has also been working on a new movie based on Bullitt, the classic action thriller starring Steve McQueen. The project received an update late last year from Kristie Macosko Krieger, one of Spielberg’s producing partners. “I’m producing it. Steven [Spielberg] and Josh Singer, who is writing the script, they are working on the story,” Krieger said. “I hope we have a script soon as the writers’ strike put us behind a bit. But they are working on it – I couldn’t tell you if it’s the next movie we are making as I don’t know at this point. I think that it will be a wildly entertaining film.“

Based on Mute Witness by Robert L. Fish, the original film starred Steve McQueen as a no-nonsense San Francisco cop who becomes determined to track down the underworld kingpin who killed the witness in his protection. Spielberg will direct the new Bullitt movie as well as produce it, with Josh Singer writing the script. Bradley Cooper is set to star in the project as Frank Bullitt. However, it won’t necessarily be a remake of the original 1968 film, but will instead tell an original story with the Frank Bullitt character at its center. Steve McQueen’s children, Chad and Molly McQueen, will executive produce the Bullitt project, as will Bradley Cooper.