How Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise envisioned our problematic present

Twenty years after its theatrical release in June 2002, the futuristic thriller Minority

Report remains a fascinatingly immersive and remarkably prescient blockbuster.

The first film to pair Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise (the director and the star

would reteam for 2005's War of the Worlds), Minority Report connected with

audiences in a big way, pulling in nearly $400 million at the box office, a huge take for a film at that time.

But it wasn’t just the star power of the Spielberg-Cruise pairing that attracted

moviegoers. Adapted from the Philip K. Dick story of the same name, the film

parlayed its themes of invasive technology and constant surveillance in the year

2054 into a story that resonated in 2002—and one that still reverberates in 2022 as