E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Director Steven Spielberg (left) and co-producer Kathleen Kennedy, the latter of whom received her first producing credit with this film.

After his parents' divorce in 1960, Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion that he later recalled as "a friend who could be the brother [he] never had and a father that [he] didn't feel [he] had anymore".[8] In 1978, he announced that he would shoot a film entitled Growing Up, which he would film in four weeks. However, the project was set aside due to delays on 1941, but the concept of making a small autobiographical film about childhood would stay with him.[9] He also thought about a follow-up to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and began to develop a darker project he had planned with John Sayles called Night Skies, in which malevolent aliens terrorize a family.[9]

Filming Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia caused a sense of loneliness in Spielberg, far from his family and friends, and made memories of his childhood creation resurface.[9][10] He told screenwriter Melissa Mathison about Night Skies, and developed a subplot from the failed project in which Buddy, the only friendly alien, befriends an autistic child. Buddy's abandonment on Earth in the script's final scene inspired the concept of E.T.[10] Mathison wrote a first draft titled E.T. and Me in eight weeks,[10] which Spielberg considered perfect.[11] The script went through two more drafts, one by Matthew Robbins which deleted an "Eddie Haskell"–esque friend of Elliott's, named Lance.[12] The chase sequence was also created, and he also suggested having the scene where E.T. got drunk.[9]

In early summer 1981, while Raiders of the Lost Ark was being promoted, Columbia Pictures met with Spielberg to discuss the script, after having to develop Night Skies with the director as the intended sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, Marvin Atonowsky, the head of Columbia Pictures' marketing and research development, concluded that it had a limited commercial potential, believing that it would appeal to mostly young children.[13] John Veitch, president of the studio's worldwide productions, also felt that the script was not good or scary enough to draw enough crowd. On the advice of Atonowsky and Veitch, Columbia CEO Frank Price passed on the project, thus putting it in a turnaround, and Spielberg approached the more receptive Sid Sheinberg, president of MCA, then the parent of Universal Studios.[14][13] Spielberg told Sheinberg to acquire the E.T. script from Columbia Pictures, which he did for $1 million and struck a deal with Price in which Columbia would retain 5% of the film's net profits. Veitch later recalled that "I think [in 1982] we made more on that picture than we did on any of our films."[13]

Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi created E.T.'s design.

Carlo Rambaldi, who designed the aliens for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was hired to design the animatronics for E.T. Rambaldi's own painting Women of Delta led him to give the creature a unique, extendable neck.[11] Its face was inspired by those of Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway.[15] Producer Kathleen Kennedy visited the Jules Stein Eye Institute to study real and glass eyes. She hired Institute staffers to create E.T.'s eyes, which she felt were particularly important in engaging the audience.[16] Four heads were created for filming, one as the main animatronic and the others for facial expressions, as well as a costume.[15] A team of puppeteers controlled E.T.'s face with animatronics. Two little people, Tamara De Treaux and Pat Bilon,[9] as well as 12-year-old Matthew DeMeritt, who was born without legs,[17] took turns wearing the costume, depending on what scene was being filmed. DeMeritt actually walked on his hands and played all scenes where he walked awkwardly or fell over. The head was placed above that of the actors, and the actors could see through slits in its chest.[11] Caprice Roth, a professional mime, filled prosthetics to play E.T.'s hands.[16] The puppet was created in three months at the cost of $1.5 million.[18] Spielberg declared that it was "something that only a mother could love".[11]

Mars, Incorporated refused to allow M&M's to be used in the film, believing that E.T. would frighten children. The Hershey Company was asked if Reese's Pieces could be used, and it agreed. This product placement resulted in a large increase in Reese's Pieces sales.[19] Science and technology educator Henry Feinberg created E.T.'s communicator device.[20][21]

External video
Henry Thomas' 1981 audition tape that got him the part of Elliott via YouTube

Having worked with Cary Guffey on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg felt confident in working with a cast composed mostly of child actors.[16] For the role of Elliott, he auditioned hundreds of boys,[22] including Keith Coogan;[23] before Jack Fisk suggested Henry Thomas for the role because Henry had played the part of Harry in the film Raggedy Man, which Fisk had directed.[24] Thomas, who auditioned in an Indiana Jones costume, did not perform well in the formal testing, but got the filmmakers' attention in an improvised scene.[16] Thoughts of his dead dog inspired his convincing tears.[25] Robert MacNaughton auditioned eight times to play Michael, sometimes with boys auditioning for Elliott. Spielberg felt that Drew Barrymore had the right imagination for mischievous Gertie after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band.[11] He enjoyed working with the children, and he later said that the experience made him feel ready to be a father.[26] Ralph Macchio was considered for the role of Tyler, before it went to his eventual The Outsiders co-star C. Thomas Howell.[27]

The major voice work of E.T. for the film was performed by Pat Welsh. She smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, which gave her voice a quality that sound effects creator Ben Burtt liked. She spent nine-and-a-half hours recording her part, and was paid $380 by Burtt for her services.[9] He also recorded 16 other people and various animals to create E.T.'s "voice". These included Spielberg, actress Debra Winger, his sleeping wife sick with a cold, a burp from his USC film professor, raccoons, otters, and horses.[28][29]

Doctors working at the USC Medical Center were recruited to play the ones who try to save E.T. after government agents take over Elliott's house. Spielberg felt that actors in the roles, performing lines of technical medical dialogue, would come across as unnatural.[26] During post-production, he decided to cut a scene featuring Harrison Ford as the principal at Elliott's school. It featured his character reprimanding Elliott for his behavior in biology class and warning of the dangers of underage drinking. He is then taken aback as Elliott's chair rises from the floor, while E.T. is levitating his "phone" equipment up the stairs with Gertie.[11] Ford's face is never seen.[30] The footage of this scene has survived and was included on the film's 1996 laserdisc release as a bonus feature. It was not included on the DVD and Blu-ray releases that followed.[31]

Principal photography began in neighborhoods in Los Angeles County and in the San Fernando Valley on September 8, 1981.[32] The project was filmed under the cover name A Boy's Life, as Spielberg did not want anyone to discover and plagiarize the plot. The actors had to read the script behind closed doors, and everyone on set had to wear an ID card.[16] The shoot began with two days at Culver City High School, and the crew spent the next 11 days moving between locations at Northridge and Tujunga.[9] The next 42 days were spent at Laird International Studios in Culver City for the interiors of Elliott's home.[33] The crew shot at a redwood forest near Crescent City in Northern California for the production's last six days.[9][10] The exterior Halloween scene and the "flying bicycle" chase scenes were filmed in Porter Ranch.[34]

Spielberg shot the film in roughly chronological order to achieve convincingly emotional performances from his cast; it was also done to help the child actors with the workload. Spielberg calculated that the film would hit home harder if the children were really saying goodbye to E.T. at the end. In the scene in which Michael first encounters E.T., his appearance caused MacNaughton to jump back and knock down the shelves behind him. The chronological shoot gave the young actors an emotional experience as they bonded with E.T., making the quarantine sequences more moving.[26] Spielberg ensured that the puppeteers were kept away from the set to maintain the illusion of a real alien. For the first time in his career, Spielberg did not storyboard most of the film, in order to facilitate spontaneity in the performances.[32] The film was shot so adults, except for Dee Wallace, are never seen from the waist up in its first half, as a tribute to the cartoons of Tex Avery.[11] According to Spielberg, the scene in which E.T. disguises himself as a stuffed toy in Elliott's closet was suggested by fellow director Robert Zemeckis after he read a draft of the screenplay that Spielberg had sent him.[35] In between takes, the young actors spent time doing activities such as riding bicycles around the sound stages, playing Dungeons & Dragons, the game that Elliott, Michael, Steve, Tyler and Greg play in a scene early in the film, and attending school lessons.[36][37][38] The shoot was completed in 61 days, four ahead of schedule.[10]

In a 2022 interview, Sean Frye, who played Steve, revealed how the visual effect close-up shots for the climax of the "flying bicycle" chase scene were filmed and reflected on the experience, saying "We were on these rigs ... They're pulling the trees backwards, past us on tracks, so it looks like we're going through and up and through and over to create this illusion that we're going forward when we're going nowhere. Then the pushing and pulling of the things so that the bike is up and down, and we can get the 'Whoaaaa' effects. That was great."[36] BMX riders Robert Cardoza, Greg Maes, David Lee, Grant Meyers, Chris Taylor, Duke Britton, Steve Williby and Bob Haro served as stunt doubles for the scene.[39]

Spielberg's regular collaborator John Williams, who composed the film's musical score, described the challenge of creating one that would generate sympathy for such an odd-looking creature. As with their previous collaborations, Spielberg liked every theme Williams composed and had it included. Spielberg loved the music for the final chase so much that he edited the sequence to suit it.[40] Williams took a modernist approach, especially with his use of polytonality, which refers to the sound of two different keys played simultaneously. The Lydian mode can also be used in a polytonal way. Williams combined polytonality and the Lydian mode to express a mystic, dreamlike and heroic quality. His theme, emphasizing coloristic instruments such as the harp, piano, celesta, and other keyboards, as well as percussion, suggests E.T.'s childlike nature and his "machine".[41] The soundtrack album was first released on June 11, 1982, the same day as the film.[42] An audiobook companion album featuring Williams' score, produced by Quincy Jones and narrated by Michael Jackson, was released on November 15, 1982, the same month as Jackson's acclaimed sixth studio album Thriller.[43]

E.T. was previewed in Houston, Texas, where it received high marks from viewers.[10] The film premiered at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's closing gala on May 26, 1982,[69][70] and was released in the United States on June 11, 1982. It opened at number one at the US box office with a gross of $11 million, and stayed at the top of the box office for six weeks; it then fluctuated between the first and second positions until October, before returning to the top spot for the final time in December during a brief holiday season re-release.[71] In its second weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing second weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $10,765,687 set by Superman II in 1981.[72] In its fourth weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $16,706,592 set earlier that year by Rocky III.[73] It had a record eight weekends with a gross of over $10 million, a feat not matched until Home Alone (1990),[74] and set a modern era record for being at number one for 16 weeks in total.[75]

The film began its international rollout in Australia on November 26, 1982, and grossed $839,992 in its first 10 days from nine theatres, setting five weekly house records and 43 daily records. In South Africa, it opened in late November and grossed $724,340 in eight days from 14 screens, setting 13 weekly highs. In France, it opened on December 1, and had 930,000 admission in its first five days on 250 screens, setting an all-time record in Paris for most daily admissions (Saturday, December 4). In Japan, it opened on December 4, and grossed $1,757,527 in two days from 35 theatres in 11 cities, setting 10 house records on Saturday and 14 on Sunday. In the United Kingdom, it opened on December 9 after a charity performance in London and grossed a record £1 million in its opening weekend.[76] The film added another 138 screens in Japan on December 11, with advance sales of 1.3 million tickets.[77]

In 1983, E.T. surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all-time;[78] by the end of its theatrical run, it had grossed $359 million in the United States and Canada and $619 million worldwide.[3][79] Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 120 million tickets in its initial U.S. theatrical run.[80] Spielberg earned $500,000 a day from his share of the profits,[81][82] while The Hershey Company's profits rose 65% due to the film's prominent placement of Reese's Pieces.[19] The "Official E.T. Fan Club" offered photographs, a newsletter that let readers "relive the film's unforgettable moments [and] favorite scenes", and a vinyl record with "phone home" and other sound clips.[83]

The film was also a merchandising success, with dolls selling 15 million units by September 1982 and becoming the best-selling toy that Christmas season.[84] E.T. went on to generate over $1 billion in merchandise sales by 1998.[85] Following the success of the film, Kuwahara, the company that created the BMX bikes featured in the film, began producing red and white "E.T." models in three price and quality levels.[86] Kuwahara reissued the E.T. model in 2002, as part of the film's 20th anniversary, and again in 2022 as part of the film's 40th anniversary.[87]

Posters of the 1985, 2002 and 2022 re-releases.

The film was re-released in 1985 and 2002, earning another $60 million and $68 million respectively,[88][89] for a worldwide total of $792 million with $435 million from the United States and Canada.[3] It held the global record until it was surpassed by Jurassic Park, another Spielberg-directed film, in 1993,[90] although it managed to hold on to the United States and Canada record for a further four years, until the release of the Special Edition of Star Wars.[91]

It was re-released in IMAX on August 12, 2022, in the United States and Canada, to commemorate the film's 40th anniversary, alongside an IMAX and RealD 3D reissue of another Spielberg film Jaws scheduled for September 2. Jim Orr, Universal's president of distribution remarked "No filmmaker, it’s fair to say, has had a greater or more enduring impact on American cinema or has created more indelible cinematic memories for tens of billions of people worldwide. We couldn’t think of a more perfect way to celebrate the anniversary of E.T. and the first Universal-Spielberg summer blockbuster, Jaws, than to allow audiences to experience these films in a way they’ve never been able to before."[92] The IMAX release grossed $490,000 on its first day from 389 theaters, for a three-day total of $1.07 million and a $438 million running total.[93]

E.T. was eventually released on VHS and laserdisc on October 27, 1988. The videos were priced with a recommended retail price of $24.95, the lowest initial price at the time for a major movie compared to the normal price of $89.95.[94][95] To combat piracy, the tapeguards and tape hubs on the videocassettes were colored green, and the tape itself was affixed with a small, holographic sticker of the 1963 Universal logo (much like the holograms on a credit card), and encoded with Macrovision.[25] The film doubled the record pre-orders of Cinderella released the same month and went on to sell over 15 million VHS units in the United States, and grossed over $250 million in video sales revenue.[95][96][97] The VHS cassette was also rented over six million times during its first two weeks in 1988, a record it held until the VHS release of Batman the following year.[98] Initial orders internationally exceeded $30 million despite the film often being sold at full price, setting records in the United Kingdom with over 81,000 units and Australia with 35,500 units. It initially shipped 152,000 units in Japan and 87,000 in Germany.[99] In 1991, Sears began selling E.T. videocassettes exclusively at their stores as part of a holiday promotion.[100] It was reissued on VHS and Laserdisc again in 1996, with the latter including a 90-minute documentary produced and directed by Laurent Bouzereau; it included interviews with Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy, composer John Williams, and other cast and crew members, as well as two theatrical trailers, an isolated music score, deleted scenes, and still galleries. The VHS included a 10-minute version of the same documentary from the Laserdisc.[101] The 2012 release of E.T. on DVD and Blu-ray grossed $24.4 million in sales revenue as of 2017 in the United States.[102]

Empire magazine called Elliott and E.T.'s flight to the forest "the most magical moment in cinema history".[103] The scene is a tribute to the 1951 Vittorio De Sica film Miracle in Milan, one of Spielberg's favorite films.[104]

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial received universal acclaim. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "This is not simply a good movie. It is one of those movies that brush away our cautions and win our hearts."[69] He later added it to his "Great Movies" list, structuring the essay as a letter to his grandchildren about the first time they watched it.[105] Michael Sragow of Rolling Stone called Spielberg "a space age Jean Renoir. ... for the first time, [he] has put his breathtaking technical skills at the service of his deepest feelings".[106] Derek Malcolm of The Guardian wrote that "E.T. is a superlative piece of popular cinema [...] a dream of childhood, brilliantly orchestrated to involve not only children but anyone able to remember being one".[107] Leonard Maltin included it in his list of "100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century" as one of only two movies from the 1980s.[108] Political commentator George Will was one of few to pan the film, feeling it spread subversive notions about childhood and science.[109]

The film holds a 99% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 136 reviews, and an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Playing as both an exciting sci-fi adventure and a remarkable portrait of childhood, Steven Spielberg's touching tale of a homesick alien remains a piece of movie magic for young and old."[110] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 91/100 based on 30 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[111] In addition to the film's wide acclaim, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were moved by it after a screening at the White House on June 27, 1982.[82] Princess Diana was in tears after watching it.[11] On September 17, 1982, it was screened at the United Nations, and Spielberg received a UN Peace Medal.[112] CinemaScore reported that audiences polled during the opening weekend gave the film a rare "A+" grade, the first known film to earn that grade.[113]

Waxwork of E.T. at Madame Tussauds, London

The film was nominated for nine Oscars at the 55th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Gandhi won that award, but its director, Richard Attenborough, said, "I was certain that not only would E.T. win, but that it should win. It was inventive, powerful, [and] wonderful. I make more mundane movies."[114] It won four Academy Awards: Best Original Score, Best Sound (Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don Digirolamo, and Gene Cantamessa), Best Sound Effects Editing (Charles L. Campbell and Ben Burtt), and Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Dennis Muren, and Kenneth F. Smith).[115] At the 40th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Picture in the Drama category and Best Original Score; it was also nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best New Male Star for Henry Thomas. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded the film Best Picture, Best Director, and a "New Generation Award" for Melissa Mathison.[116] The film won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Writing, Best Special Effects, Best Music, and Best Poster Art, while Henry Thomas, Robert McNaughton, and Drew Barrymore won Young Artist Awards. In addition to his Academy, Golden Globe and Saturn, composer John Williams won two Grammy Awards and a BAFTA for the score. The film's audiobook album also won the Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards in 1984.[n 1][118] It was also honored abroad:, winning the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Blue Ribbon Awards in Japan, Cinema Writers Circle Awards in Spain, César Awards in France, and David di Donatello in Italy.

In American Film Institute polls, the film has been voted the 24th greatest film of all time,[119] the 44th most heart-pounding,[120] and the sixth most inspiring.[121] Other AFI polls rated it as having the 14th greatest music score[122] and as the third greatest science-fiction one.[123] The line "E.T. phone home" was ranked 15th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list,[124] and 48th on Premiere's top movie quote list.[125] In 2005, it topped a Channel 4 poll in the UK of the 100 greatest family films,[126] and was listed by Time as one of the 100 best movies ever made.[127]

In 2003, Entertainment Weekly called the film the eighth most "tear-jerking";[128] in 2007, in a survey of both films and television series, the magazine declared it the seventh greatest work of science-fiction media in the past 25 years.[129] The Times also named it as their ninth favorite alien in a film, calling it "one of the best-loved non-humans in popular culture".[130] It is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. In 1994, it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[131] In 2011, ABC aired Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, revealing the results of a poll of fans conducted by ABC and People magazine: It was selected as the fifth best film of all time and the second best science fiction film.[132] On October 22, 2012, Madame Tussauds unveiled wax likenesses of E.T. at six of its international locations.[133]

In July 1982, during the film's first theatrical run, Spielberg and Mathison wrote a treatment for a sequel to be titled E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears.[177] It would have shown Elliott and his friends getting kidnapped by evil aliens, and attempting to contact E.T. for help. Spielberg decided against pursuing it, feeling it "would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity. E.T. is not about going back to the planet".[178] However, on June 28, 2022, Henry Thomas revealed that he hopes a feature-length sequel never gets made, but added "I guarantee you, there are a few men in a very big room now salivating and using their Abacus and slide rules to come up with some really, really big numbers."[179]

Poster for A Holiday Reunion

On November 28, 2019, during NBC's broadcast of the 93rd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Xfinity released a four-minute commercial directed by Lance Acord, calling it a "short film sequel" to the original film, titled A Holiday Reunion.[180] The commercial stars Henry Thomas, reprising his role as Elliott, now an adult with a family of his own. Julianne Hoyak played his wife, Grace, while Zebastin Borjeau and Alivia Drews played their children, Elliott Jr. and Maggie. The story follows E.T. as he returns to Earth for the holiday season, and focuses on the importance of bringing family together. References and nods to the original film are featured, such as a photo of the Taylors' family dog Harvey on the kitchen fridge and a replica of the makeshift Speak & Spell communication device.[181]

The commercial utilizes a practical puppet for E.T. himself. In an interview with Deadline, Accord said that he went this route in order to elicit more realistic performances from the actors, the same way Spielberg did on the original film. John Williams' score from the original film is mixed into the commercial. Spielberg was consulted by Comcast (parent company of NBCUniversal, which itself owns Universal Pictures) before production on the commercial began.[182]

Peter Intermaggio, SVP for Marketing Communications for Comcast remarked on the making of the commercial: "Our goal is to show how Xfinity and Sky technology connects family, friends and loved ones, which is so important during the holidays ... The classic friendship between E.T. and Elliott resonates around the world." Before the commercial was released, Thomas assured that viewers would "get everything they want out of a sequel without the messy bits that could destroy the beauty of the original and the special place it has in people’s minds and hearts ... Looking at the storyboards, I could see exactly why Steven was really behind it, because the integrity of the story isn’t lost in this retelling."[182]

The full commercial also played on Syfy and theatrically during cinema pre-shows through January 5, 2020 and a two–minute version was edited for Comcast's British subsidiary, Sky UK.[182]