I can’t stop thinking about how Anne Hathaway is the lead of five movies on the 2026 release schedule. First she played a pop star in A24’s Mother Mary, then she had two commercial hits in The Devil Wears Prada and The Odyssey. Which brings us to this weekend, where she stars in the dinosaur film The End Of Oak Street. How the heck?
CinemaBlend’s Jeff McCobb spoke to The End Of Oak Street’s writer/director David Robert Mitchell and producer J.J. Abrams. During the interview, he had to ask if there was any difficulty nailing down the most popular actress in Hollywood. In Mitchell’s words:
She was very excited to make the film. I can’t speak to scheduling or any of that, but I don’t think it was an issue.
You would think, right? Let me try to make sense of it based on what we know about when her five 2026 films were filmed. Mother Mary filmed between May 2023 and July 2024 – so that one was a long time in the making. Then, The End Of Oak Street was actually filmed back in March to June of 2024 and was originally going to come out last May.
But, last year had to be Hathaway’s busiest time because both Verity and The Odyssey were in production the first half of 2026. Hathaway then jumped to The Devil Wears Prada from June to October 2025. Getting Hathaway on board for The End Of Oak Street wasn’t an issue. But, Abrams did mention one way her busy schedule got in the way just a tiny bit. In his words:
We had some additional photography, so we just had to make sure we were doing it when she was available, because as you say, she [was] very busy… She was nothing but fantastic the whole time.
The End Of Oak Street has Anne Hathaway playing Denise Platt, who is an aspiring novelist, wife to Ewan McGregor’s Greg. She’s also the mother to two kids Audrey and Brian (played by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery). In the film from the writer/director of It Follows, their quiet suburban neighborhood gets disrupted by a sudden appearance of prehistoric creatures.
At a previous event CinemaBlend attended, J.J. Abrams likened the film to Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist. You’d think he’d say Jurassic Park from the outside in, wouldn’t you? And, while some have theorized it’s connected to Cloverfield, Abrams has confirmed no, it’s not.
The End Of Oak Street is earning positive reviews from critics who are calling it “crowd-pleasing,” a “good time” and a “rose-tinted romp through Spielberg’s ’80s”. The thriller will perhaps have us thinking for the fourth time this year, “What can’t Anne Hathaway do?” The new movie is now playing only in theaters.
