Had there been an “E.T” sequel, Steven Spielberg would have had the titular alien not simply telephone house, however go house. In the long run, Spielberg had no want to direct a follow-up to his iconic 1982 movie — and he had simply sufficient sway to place his foot down.
The auteur stated in the course of the TCM Basic Movie Competition: New York Pop-Up x 92NY (by way of The Hollywood Reporter) that “E.T.” was a shock hit.
“There was no strain. I had low expectations,” Spielberg stated. “I assumed I used to be making a very younger folks’s film. I didn’t anticipate any field workplace, I merely wished to get this factor by my system and out into my world. It didn’t should be in your world; I simply wished to make the film for me.”
Naturally, the studio wished extra. Although Spielberg says he “simply didn’t need to make a sequel,” he did contemplate what one would appear like.
“I flirted with it for a little bit bit — just a bit bit to see if I [could] consider a narrative — and the one factor I might take into consideration was a guide that was written by any individual that wrote the guide for it known as ‘The Inexperienced Planet,’ which was all going to happen at E.T.’s house,” he stated. “We had been all going to have the ability to go to E.T.’s house and see how E.T. lived. But it surely was higher as a novel than I feel it might have been as a movie.”
“E.T.” received 4 Oscars and have become the primary movie to earn greater than $300 million on the U.S. field workplace. The worldwide hit was extremely private to Spielberg.
“It was my story,” he stated. “It wasn’t George Lucas’s story, wasn’t Peter Benchley’s story, it was my story. I had simply finished various very tough productions [with ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ as the most recent], and I had not supposed this to be a tough film to make, however it was one thing that got here to my coronary heart. It was one thing that I assumed up.”
And it was one thing that he “fought” to maintain contained to only one movie.
“That was an actual hard-fought victory as a result of I didn’t have any rights. Earlier than ‘E.T.,’ I had some rights, however I didn’t have quite a lot of rights,” he stated. “I sort of didn’t have what we name ‘the freeze,’ the place you may cease the studio from making a sequel since you management the freeze on sequels, remakes, and different ancillary makes use of of the IP. I didn’t have that. I bought it after ‘E.T.’ due to its success.”
“E.T.” star Drew Barrymore, who was in dialog with Spielberg on the occasion, recalled being instructed there could be no “E.T. 2” on the time.
“I bear in mind you saying, ‘We don’t make a sequel to “E.T.”‘ I feel I used to be eight,” Barrymore stated. “I bear in mind being like, ‘OK, that’s a bummer, however I completely get it.’ I assumed it was a wise alternative. I very a lot perceive it. The place can we go from right here? They’re simply going to check it to the primary and depart one thing that’s good alone in isolation open to scrutiny. It made a lot sense.”
She added that “E.T.” is the movie she is most happy with.
“I feel ‘E.T.,’ for me, is the one I’m essentially the most happy with as a result of it’s the one which modified my life. There’s no query about that,” Barrymore stated. “All the things in my life is about how I bought believed in by one human being, and that’s the life that I attempt to honor daily.”