John Williams hasn’t composed music for every Steven Spielberg movie, but it kind of feels that way. Starting with 1974’s The Sugarland Express, all the way through 2022’s The Fabelmans, Spielberg and Williams have helped create memories and emotions that have and will last a lifetime. And now, though it wasn’t always a certainty, it seems that the partnership will continue beyond 50 years.
Variety reports that, at a recent event, it was revealed Williams is writing the music for Spielberg’s next film, a still-untitled UFO movie starring Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt, out in June 2026. Very little is known about the film, but if Williams is on board, that’s certainly a huge step in the right direction.
The collaboration will mark the 30th time Williams has written music for a Spielberg movie, which includes all-time classics such as Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, the first four Indiana Jones movies, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and on and on and on.
At a certain point, though, there was a chance The Fabelmans was going to be the last time they worked together. In 2022, Williams revealed he was considering retirement after his work on the 2023 release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (which Spielberg produced but James Mangold directed). “At the moment I’m working on Indiana Jones 5, which Harrison Ford—who’s quite a bit younger than I am—I think has announced will be his last film,” Williams said at the time. “So, I thought: if Harrison can do it, then perhaps I can, also.”
He later walked that back when he heard what Spielberg was working on next, which, presumably, was this movie. “One thing Steven isn’t is a man you can say no to,” Williams said in 2023. “I just found out he’s not retiring.”
So excellent as it is that Williams is returning for this new Spielberg movie, that it may have also been the movie itself that drew him out of retirement is even more exciting. It’s scheduled for release on June 12, 2026.
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