When will The Creator be released on Disney+?

Visionary director Gareth Edwards is back with his fourth feature film, The Creator, and it looks set to be his biggest and most impressive yet.

Edwards burst onto the screen back in 2010 with his cheaply made yet wholly impressive debut Monsters and has since followed it up with a duo of science fiction and fantasy epics, starting with a reboot of Godzilla in 2014 and Star Wars’ first anthology spin-off, Rogue One, in 2016.

The Creator is Edwards’ latest and has appeared out of seemingly nowhere with little-to-no online preamble to deliver what looks to be the British filmmaker’s biggest movie to date.

The Creator is billed as a sci-fi thriller, but what is it all about? Well, we’ve rounded up all the key information we could find including the release date, plot, cast and trailer details.

When will The Creator be released on Disney+?

Gareth Edwards’ The Creator will make its streaming debut when it lands on Disney+ on Wednesday, 17 January 2024. The film was first released in UK cinemas and IMAX 28 September 2023.

What have critics said about The Creator?

As Edwards’ sci-fi opus touches down in cinemas, reviews have started to materialise online - but how much is hyperbole and what is cold hard fact? Well, we’ve scoured a batch of the best reviews to provide a flavour of what you can expect from The Creator.

According to our own critique,, Edwards’ movie dazzles and poses a range of head-scratching questions about AI — yet refrains from going down the sinister route so often associated with this sci-fi tool. Instead, The Creator “seeks empathy for this benign and often spiritual new life force walking among us who simply want to be accepted.”

The Telegraph called it “stunningly realised,” praising “Edwards’ extraordinarily skilful transferring of the Monsters aesthetic to a sprawlingly large (though still relatively leanly budgeted) canvas.” Also a fan was The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who called it an “intriguing, stimulating, exhilarating movie.”

The Evening Standard wasn’t as easily impressed though, suggesting the movie relies a little too much on sentimentality with a plot that quickly becomes tricky to follow.

Read more reviews below:

Yahoo Movies UK: Bold sci-fi vision poses new questions about AI (4-min read)

The Telegraph: Humans are the bad guys in this stunningly realised AI epic (4-min read)

The Guardian: Vast and exhilarating sci-fi actioner rages against the AI machine (3-min read)

Evening Standard: AI epic ends up a mawkishly synthetic misfire (2-min read)

Is there a trailer for The Creator?

The handsome and glorious first teaser trailer for The Creator was released in May.

Splicing slick visuals with a dystopian Blade Runner aesthetic and enough bubbling AI unease to give James Cameron’s Terminator franchise the willies, Edwards’ latest promises to do what any science fiction movie worth its salt should do — transport us to another world.

Watch it below.

A second trailer, which showed in cinemas ahead of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, was released online in July. It showcased more of the film’s impressive visual effects, and Terminator meets A.I: Artificial Intelligence storyline.

Shortly before Edwards’ film hit cinemas, an all-new IMAX trailer landed online showcasing ever more of its lush visuals and high-concept sci-fi storyline.

What happens in The Creator?

Based on a story and screenplay conceived by Edwards himself, The Creator comes complete with an elevator pitch that might as well have been ripped from the current headlines of any news outlet.

Set in a near future (2070, according to Edwards) where artificial intelligence has reached a stage so advanced that it has become humanity’s greatest threat and is outlawed in the West, a recently widowed ex-military man (John David Washington) is hired by what’s left of the government to track down and kill the entity responsible for creating this advanced AI tech in the AI-friendly New Asia.

That said, it wouldn’t be much of a story if there wasn’t some sort of twist. When our hero finally finds this all-important visionary — known here as the Creator — he discovers it has created a mysterious new weapon which could forever change the course of both sides of the battlefield.

Who is in The Creator cast?

John David Washington looks set to continue his cinematic winning streak following turns in BlacKkKlansman and Tenet by stepping into the shoes of Edwards' tortured army vet hero Joshua.

Meanwhile, a handful of other names have been confirmed to appear in the project.

Sturgill Simpson will play Shipley, taking over a role that was once circled by Eastbound and Down’s Danny McBride, while Edwards’ Godzilla co-star Ken Watanabe plays human-like robot Harun, a character that was initially due to be played by Benedict Wong before he had to leave due to scheduling conflicts.

He's a father figure to Maya, a character living in New Asia played by Eternals star Gemma Chan.

I, Tonya star Allison Janney joins as a military character named Colonel Howell, with Finchy from the UK’s version of The Office, Ralph Ineson, cast as Andrews and Madeleine Voyles playing Alphie, the young human-like machine glimpsed in the movie’s first trailer.

Talking to Total Film, Edwards explained that Alphie is the key to the whole story: “It’s the first AI that’s capable of growing beyond the way it came out of the factory. She will grow and has an ability — a power — to control things. Like, wirelessly remote control things, the range of which grows through the movie.”

The Outsider actor Marc Menchaca also appears playing a soldier.

The Creator will be released on Disney+ on Wednesday, 17 January 2024.