Sci Fi Movies This Week: Weekly column tracking what is coming in the current week in the way of sci fi, fantasy, and horror releases as well as news and updates on genre films, streaming and theatrical.
Sci Fi Movie Premieres This Week:
The next big Summer Blockbuster arrives this weekend with Christopher Nolan’s epic take on The Odyssey premiering on Friday. Projections have suggested that it will have a strong opening tally at the Box Office, but it has a steep budget of $250 million, so we will have to see if it manages to break the streak of Blockbuster duds this season. That is the only genre entry premiering in theaters, but several more will be coming to streaming. On Tuesday of this week, both Backrooms and Stop! That! Train! became available on VOD. On Wednesday on streaming, Cold Storage premiered on MGM+, and on Friday Obsession arrives on Peacock and Exit 8 premieres on Shudder. You can see highlights for this week below, and you can see the schedule of all the current and upcoming sci fi and fantasy movies at this link.
The Odyssey (In Theaters, July 17th): A mythic action epic that follows Odysseus’ journey home after the Trojan war.
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson
Backrooms (On Demand, July 14th): A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom. After a therapist’s patient goes missing into a dimension beyond reality, she has to enter the unknown to save him. Based on the web series of the same name which was inspired by the creepypasta.
Directed by: Kane Parsons
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell
You can read my review of Backrooms at this link.
Sci Fi Movie News of Note:
Work has begun on the next installment in the Jurassic World franchise to be titled Jurassic World: Liberation. There has not been an official announcement on it yet, but the film appears in the latest Production Weekly listings, which likely suggests that it is officially moving into production. This one came to the attention of fans when Universal Pictures registered the domain jurassicworldliberation.movie, and now the title for the next installment appears to be confirmed. Garetth Edwards, who directed the previous installment in the franchise Jurassic World Rebirth, is in talks to return, and Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali are also expected to be back. KinoCheck.com has learned that the film is targeting a June 2028 premiere. No plot details are currently available for this film which will be the fifth in the Jurassic World cycle and the eighth in the Jurassic Park franchise which got it all started.
Starlog Magazine is set to return in Fall 2026 with its first print issue since April 2009. That publication got its start in August 1976 as the only professional magazine on the stands dedicated to covering the sci fi, fantasy, and horror genres. (Famous Monsters of Filmland was still around, but its focus was mostly on horror). Starlog was a primary source of news and deep dives into genre movies and television (and I was picking it up off the stands each month because, yes, I am that old), and it offered coverage on such pivotal early sci fi Blockbusters as Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, and more. It ran through 2009 before ending its print run when internet sites started to seriously cut into the sales of magazines (the first incarnation of Axiom’s Edge Sci Fi was one of those). The return issue is set for Fall 2026, though a specific release date has not been announced yet. You can read more and sign up for the newsletter at the Starlog website. and you can read more about the original magazine at Cult-SciFi.com.
Peter Jackson will be returning to the director’s chair, helming the sequel to Steven Spielberg’s 2011 film The Adventures of Tintin. Jackson produced the first film with plans to take over for the sequel, though that has taken a while. He has been working on the script, but official production has not begun yet.
Disclosure Day is still in theaters–trying to break even on its $115 million budget–but it will be arriving on home video next week. That one will be available to purchase VOD on Monday at the price of $24.99. You can pre-order it now from on Amazon.com.
Recent Trailers
The Last House (Streaming-Netflix, August 7th): A family of four are suddenly sealed inside their home with no way out, and must work together to survive against both their dwindling resources and the mysterious, looming threat that is keeping them trapped.
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Greta Lee, Wagner Moura
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