Chris Pratt's Mercy reveal at CinemaCon has me convinced that this might just be a repackaged Spielberg hit from the 2000's

Chris Pratt's Mercy was one of the projects Amazon MGM revealed at the 2025 CinemaCon, and it must have gotten at least a section of sci-fi fans excited. That doesn't come as a surprise, considering the amount of pull the genre has had for many decades. However, in recent years, many dystopian narratives have started hitting too close to home.

So, the novelty of some of these concepts has worn off. It was different when Stanley Kubrick explored the idea behind artificial intelligence controlling human lives in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now, five decades later, we are witnessing the threat of AI daily. So, it isn't a "Black Mirror" to our unseen future anymore, but to our ever-evolving present.

Whether people are being surveilled or their actions are being closely monitored, every potentially progressive tool is being used to gain control over those who hold power. That's why Severance feels like just another form of code-switching that professional employees regularly experience.

Now, Chris Pratt's film shows a man falling victim to an AI system he helped shape. It made me wonder whether it is just a repackaged Minority Report. Of course, not every AI-related movie is a rehash of this Spielberg film. Still, there are some similarities between the revealed plot points for Mercy and Spielberg's 2002 film that beg me to consider this possibility.

Disclaimer: This article contains the author's opinion. Reader's discretion is advised.

Is Chris Pratt's Mercy just a repackaged Spielberg film? Here's what we think

CinemaCon 2025 - Amazon MGM Studios Presentation - Inside - Source: Getty

I don't think any dystopian concept will be particularly scary in the constantly surveilled world we live in. So, when I heard of Chris Pratt's Mercy, it felt like another Black Mirror script. Not to discredit its writers, but there is no dearth of similarly dark sci-fi stories. Some are bound to sound similar to others. So, the premise for Pratt's film sounded familiar to Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. After all, both films explore the idea of a person being accused of a crime he did not commit by a program he was in charge of in some shape of capacity.

Whether Pratt or Tom Cruise's character, they both have to make their way through the available technology to prove their innocence. Pratt's character is chair-bound and needs to submit to the expectations of a technology that is in charge of truth and justice. It sounds like a dystopian nightmare, but with people being fired or manipulated these days over an AI system, it seems closer to life than ever before. However, it's important to note that all we have right now about Mercy is the footage shared from CinemaCon to base our judgment on.

Whether repackaged or not, this hypothesis does not claim that it is inherently wrong to draw inspiration from other works. Oftentimes, films are pitched with a reference to older works. Just yesterday, I read some people on Instagram talking about M3GAN 2.0 sounding similar to Terminator 2 since they follow the fight between good and evil among the robots. Maybe the film was pitched as a "Terminator 2 set in a so-and-so world." Even Severance creator Dan Erickson once mentioned a Black Mirror episode to be an inspiration for his hit Apple TV+ show.

So, no matter what, execution matters just as much, if not more, than ideation. Hopefully, Chris Pratt and Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy will offer a fresh spin on the familiar plot points and give us enough to ponder after we leave the cinema halls.

Also read: Mercy: Everything we know about Amazon MGM's latest sci-fi thriller starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson

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Edited by Zainab Shaikh