‘Challengers’ star Josh O’Connor joins Steven Spielberg’s next film

Josh O’Connor, the increasingly high-profile star of “The Crown” and “Challengers,” has joined the cast of Steven Spielberg’s secretive next film, Variety reports. 

O’Connor joins the previously announced Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, and Eve Hewson in the film, which is scheduled for May 15, 2026 from Universal. 

The project will reunite Spielberg with his “Jurassic Park” screenwriter David Koepp and is expected to have sci-fi elements. Spielberg’s longtime collaborator Kristie Macosko Krieger is producer. The studio describes the film as a “new original event film.” The release date and rumored UFO subject matter indicates that Spielberg is returning to the blockbuster style of his films involving aliens like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” and “War of the Worlds.” 

O’Connor won an Emmy for his performance as Prince Charles on “The Crown” Season 4, and earned rave reviews for his performance as troubled former tennis prodigy Patrick Zwieg in “Challengers.” He will next be seen in the third “Knives Out” movie, “Wake Up Dead Man,” and the historical romance drama “The History of Sound” with Paul Mescal. 

Steven Spielberg, of course, is Hollywood’s highest-grossing filmmaker of all time, and his over 50-year filmography includes epochal blockbusters like “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Minority Report” and Academy Award-winning dramas like “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and “Lincoln.”