We're Officially 1 Year Away From The Return Of A Sci-Fi Icon Behind Multiple Masterpieces

Published Oct 1, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT Simon Gallagher has worked in movie and TV journalism for more than 17 years. He has written more than 6000 articles and reviews, and edited thousands more. He is an expert in the entertainment industry, particularly in the golden age of screen superheroes. Simon is also a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic. 2026 has been a huge year for some of sci-fi’s most remarkable names: not only did we see the belated returns of two titan directors to the genre in Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott, but forgotten sci-fi geniuses Phil Lord and Christopher Miller returned to their roots almost two decades after making Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Project Hail Mary definitively proved how much LucasFilm dropped the ball on them with Solo. The future has some major returns too: Escape From New York and Starship Troopers are destined for remakes, and Star Trek’s cinematic relaunch will land somewhere around 2028, if we ever hear more than vague details about it. More specifically, 2027 will also see Star Wars’ original, unmessed-with theatrical cut finally return to theaters, with the long-awaited Spaceballs sequel following it. For a genre so tuned into innovation and progressive futurism, we do appreciate familiarity a surprising amount. Arguably the most exciting return in 2027 to sci-fi will come on October 1, 2027, when J.J. Abrams finally returns to the director’s chair 7 years after The Rise Of Skywalker, with his exciting, mysterious sci-fi, The Great Beyond. JJ Abrams Returns to Sci-Fi After A 7 Year Quiet Period © Hulu /Courtesy Everett Collection Last we saw of Abrams as a director, he had stepped back into the Star Wars pilot’s seat for 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, steering the Sequel Trilogy across a surprisingly chaotic finish line. That was, of course, something of a poisoned chalice, given the ridiculous weight of discourse around The Last Jedi, and the perceived need to “right the ship.” Whether the Palpatine nonsense was the right move will forever be debated, but it made $1 billion, and earned a far higher audience score on Rotten Tomatoes than the critics conspired to grant it. Since then, Abrams has noticeably stepped back from feature film-making. Rather than rushing to another tent-pole project, or another major IP, he spent the intervening years leading his production company, Bad Robot. In 2019, he signed a huge first-look deal with Warner Bros (which was re-upped in 2024 with a more limited scope), and quite honestly, the fruits were weirdly uninspiring, with major cancellations like The Shining prequel, The Overlook, and an abandoned Constantine series. We did get The End of Oak Street, of course, which had a delightful Twilight Zone vibe, and who doesn’t love big silly dinosaur movies? But in directing terms, Abrams has long passed his previous longest period of activity since debuting on the big screen with Mission: Impossible 3. Why JJ Abrams The Great Beyond Is So Exciting Not only is it good to have a great storyteller like Abrams back making movies himself, it’s also a huge deal that it’s another sci-fi. And the long gap since The Rise of Skywalker is precisely why The Great Beyond feels like such a major event. Abrams is still one of modern cinema's strongest visual storytellers, with a particular talent for balancing pace, atmospheric worlds, and compelling characters. He’s a great original storyteller, but even his franchise work in soft-rebooting Star Trek and launching The Force Awakens showed how well-equipped he was to wade into decades of established lore and make something truly his own. Both are exceptional movies, no matter what gloss the revisionists try to steal from them. And, of course, the Spielbergian Super 8 was a smaller scale, brilliant gem. Abrams' sci-fi TV track record that really contains the magic: before he stepped up to movies, he created three sci-fi masterpieces in Alias, Lost, and Fringe and each painted vivid portraits of his gifted imagination. Given absolute creative freedom over an original science fiction narrative, as he will with The Great Beyond, he usually delivers a masterclass. So you don’t need to be told why this is exciting if you’ve been paying attention. Everything surrounding The Great Beyond is already very appealing, and then you get into the details of the release itself. Story details have all been very vague, so far, but we know it’s an original story, which Abrams revealed at CinemaCon he “needed to get back to”, and the first look footage promised that “The world you think you know the limits of, you can’t even begin to fathom.” That’s got to be delicious for anyone who has grown accustomed to Abrams’ brand of mystery-box storytelling. And finally, you get to add in the drawing power of an exceptional ensemble cast led by Glen Powell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jenna Ortega. It barely even matters who they’re playing: The Great Beyond is already the exact kind of original, event-level science fiction cinema we’ve been waiting for Abrams to make for years. The Great Beyond is coming to theaters worldwide on October 1, 2027.