Steven Spielberg he knew lightning wouldn’t strike his alien twice.
“I just didn’t want to make a sequel,” the critically acclaimed director said in conversation with one of the film’s stars, Drew Barrymore, at the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92NY event on Saturday, at The Hollywood Reporter.
“I flirted with it a bit – just a bit to see if I would [could] imagine the story – and the only thing I could think of was a book written by someone who wrote a book for her called ‘The Green Planet’, which would all take place in the house of ET,” he said, speaking of the William Publications Kotzwinkle from 1985, which continues the ET story from the 1982 blockbuster.
SPIELBERG REVISES OLD FILMS FOR MODERN AUDIENCES, ADMITS MISTAKE’ IN EDITING THE GUN FROM ‘ET’
Director Steven Spielberg says that at one point he considered making a sequel to “ET the Extra-Terrestrial” but gave up. (Mark Sennett/Getty Images)
“We were all able to go to ET’s home and see how ET lives. But it was better as a novel than I think it would have been as a movie.”
Spielberg, who made the Oscar-winning film, “ET Extraterrestrial,” early in his career, he said when discussions about a sequel began, he didn’t have much influence in the industry. “It was a real hard fought victory because I didn’t have any rights. Before ‘ET’ I had some rights, but I didn’t have a lot of rights,” he explained.
“ET” previously held the record for the highest-grossing film of all time. (Universal/Getty Images)
“I kind of didn’t have what we call a ‘freeze,’ where you can prevent a studio from making a sequel because you control the freeze on sequels, remakes and other ancillary uses of the IP. I didn’t have that. I got it after ‘ET.’ because of its success.”
Barrymore, who made the film when she was 6 and 7, told Spielberg that she remembers him being against a sequel from the start.
Steven Spielberg and Drew Barrymore pose with ET in 1982. (Mark Sennett/Getty Images)
“I remember you saying, ‘We’re not going to make a sequel to ET. I think I was eight years old. I remember saying, ‘OK, that’s a shame, but I totally get it.'” Barrymore recalled. “I thought it was a smart choice. I totally get it. What next? They’re just going to compare it to the first one and leave something that’s only perfect in isolation open to scrutiny. It made so much sense.”
”I have no intention of seeing ET anywhere outside of this proscenium,” Spielberg said from Kaufman’s 92Y concert hall.
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Drew Barrymore and Steven Spielberg spoke on stage at the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92NY on Saturday and recalled their 1982 classic, “ET the Extra-Terrestrial.” (Mike Coppola/Getty Images for TCM)
Although the film was once the highest-grossing film of all time, in the more than four decades since the film premiered, Spielberg has spoken at length about one of his regrets about the feature film.
“When ET was republished [in 2002]i actually digitized 5 shots where the ‘ET’ went from a marionette to a digital puppet and also replaced the gun when the FBI ran into the van, now they are walkie talkies. So there’s a really bad version of ‘ET’ that I looked up to’Star Wars‘ and all the digital enhancements to ‘A New Hope’ that George [Lucas] put it on, and I continued because marketing at Universal thought we needed it[ed] something that will bring audiences back and watch the film so I made a few tweaks[s] in the movie,” he said Screen Rant years before.
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Steven Spielberg received backlash for the way the re-released version of the film was edited. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
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“Social media wasn’t as deep-minded as it is today, but what just started, you know, was a loud, negative voice about, ‘how could you ruin our favorite childhood movie by taking away guns and putting walkie-talkies in their hands, among other things? .’ So I learned a big lesson and that was the last time I ever decided to mess with the past. What’s done is done, and um, I’ll never go back and make another movie that I’m in control of. Or changes.”
