Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg all working on mysterious movies

There are whispers in the air in Tinseltown. Three of its favourite sons — Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan and J.J. Abrams — are all working on new movies.

But they’ve all been sheathed in the shroud of secrecy. Anyone who knows what any of them are about are keeping to the terms of their non-disclosure agreements, leading to wild theories that included time travelling, a helicopter action thriller and a period vampire move.

The latest news related to these mystery projects is that Samuel L. Jackson is in negotiations to join Abrams’ movie, which has already signed up a triumvirate of hot young talent, Glen Powell, Jenna Ortega and Sex Education’s Emma Mackey.

Abrams wrote the screenplay and is due to direct with filming to start in the northern hemisphere spring, but everyone is keeping mum on any other details.

The speculation is Abrams’ movie might be in the sci-fi space given his history with the genre having made Super 8, two Star Wars and two Star Trek movies, as well as creating or producing a bunch of TV projects such as Fringe, Alcatraz and Lost.

Abrams’ most recent cinema release was in 2019 with The Rise of Skywalker so he is overdue on a big screen project, although he has been working on a TV series, Duster, for HBO.

The casting news is coming in thick and fast. Yesterday, Robert Pattinson was revealed to be reuniting with Nolan on the LA-based English director’s next film. The two had previously worked together on Tenet.

Also along for the ride are Lupita Nyong’o, real-life couple Tom Holland and Zendaya, and Nolan’s Interstellar stars Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway.

Filming on the movie Nolan also wrote is expected to begin in the first half of next year with a release date scheduled for July 2026. July is Nolan’s favourite month to premiere his films.

There’s always interest in Nolan’s upcoming slate but after the critical and commercial success of Oppenheimer (seven Oscars and $US976 million at the box office), there is even higher expectations and anticipation than usual.

The film is being released through Universal Studios, which won a competitive bidding process to nab the rights. It’ll be the second collaboration between the filmmaker and the studio after Nolan made a public break with his former long-time home, Warner Bros, after WB decided to release its entire 2021 cinema slate on streaming.

Nolan has yet to make a streaming project and is a fierce advocate for the big screen experience. When Oppenheimer was released in 2023, an exclusivity deal it had with IMAX theatres bumped out Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, which had been out for a week at that part and had an effect on the Tom Cruise movie’s depressed gross.

This week, Josh O’Connor (The Crown, Challengers) was the latest actor linked to Spielberg’s also-secret project. The English thespian will join Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo (Rustin, Candyman) and Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters, The Perfect Couple).

What is known about the Spielberg movie is that it is set for a May 2026 release and comes from a story he conceived but the screenplay is by David Koepp. The word on the street is the film has been classified as an “event” movie and may feature sci-fi elements.

That tracks if you look at Spielberg and Koepp’s previous collaborations — Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

It will also be a swing back to tentpole filmmaking after Spielberg’s most recent release, The Fabelmans, which was a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical story drawn from his childhood as a kid growing up with aspirations to be a director.

The Fabelmans was critically acclaimed but underperformed at the box office, grossing only $US45.6 million.

While it’s not unusual for three filmmakers of Spielberg, Abrams and Nolan’s profiles to be casting for their next projects at the same time, it is odd that no one seems to know what any of them are about.

Even stranger is that the generally leaky Hollywood has managed to keep it all under wraps — for now.