Sony Pictures has been busy of late, dropping the Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle trailer, releasing the first four minutes of Spider-Man: Homecoming free online, and releasing the critically acclaimed Baby Driver in theaters. Amid this flurry of activity, however, the studio still found the time to journey back into the past and preview the upcoming re-release of an iconic film: Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
On Monday, while you were cleaning your grill and ornamenting your property with American flag-themed decorations, Sony Pictures posted the video above to its YouTube page. Entitled, This Means Something, the 56-second spot shows mostly images of an air-traffic control screen (with a few, cryptic exceptions), but the audio will have movie fans nostalgic, confused, and giddy all at once. The sound was pulled directly from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a film that is on many a short list of the greatest sci-fi films of all time.
As reported by Deadline, the teaser was released to coincide with World UFO Day, but you would be forgiven for wondering what exactly it is teasing. We all know Hollywood cannot get enough of reboots/remakes/re-imaginings nowadays and the spot caused some fans to speculate that there might be an updated version of the beloved classic in the works, prompting reactions that ranged from excited to horrified. The truth, however, is far less controversial.
Apparently, Sony Pictures plans to re-release the original in theaters for a week, beginning on September 1. The news makes perfect sense, as Close Encounters of the Third Kind was meant to produce the sort of awe and wonder that only the big screen can deliver.
Getting back to the spot itself, it opens with the words “Every day, air traffic control tracks thousands of planes. But every so often, they see something … that cannot be explained,” scrolling onto the screen and closes with the URL: wearestillnotalone.com. The latter appears to be a sign-up for a mailing list, which allows members to receive information on “UFO sightings,” along with information on Sony Pictures projects.
This looks like it could be a lot of fun for fans of Close Encounters, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr and was originally released in theaters December 14, 1977.
