Steven Spielberg put the kibosh on ‘E.T.’ sequel back when he 'didn't have any rights'
Steven Spielberg knew lightning wouldn't strike twice in his extra-terrestrial.
"I just did not want to make a sequel," the critically acclaimed filmmaker said in conversation with one of the films' stars, Drew Barrymore, at the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92NY event on Saturday, per The Hollywood Reporter.
"I flirted with it for a little bit — just a little bit to see if I [could] think of a story — and the only thing I could think about was a book that was written by somebody that wrote the book for it called ‘The Green Planet,’ which was all going to take place at E.T.’s home," he said, referencing William Kotzwinkle's 1985 publication, which continued E.T.'s story from the 1982 blockbuster.
"We were all going to be able to go to E.T.’s home and see how E.T. lived. But it was better as a novel than I think it would have been as a film."
Spielberg, who made the Academy Award-winning film, "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," early in his career, said when sequel discussions began, he didn't have a lot of pull within the industry. "That was a real hard-fought victory because I didn’t have any rights. Before ‘E.T.,’ I had some rights, but I didn’t have a lot of rights," he explained.
"I kind of didn’t have what we call ‘the freeze,’ where you can stop the 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 ‘E.T.’ because of its success."
Barrymore, who shot the film when she was ages 6 and 7, told Spielberg that she remembered him being against a follow-up film from the get-go.
"I remember you saying, ‘We are not making a sequel to ‘E.T.’‘ I think I was eight. I remember being like, ‘OK, that’s a bummer, but I totally get it,’" Barrymore recalled. "I thought it was a smart choice. I very much understand it. Where do we go from here? They’re just going to compare it to the first and leave something that’s perfect alone in isolation open to scrutiny. It made so much sense."
"I have no intention ever of seeing E.T. anywhere outside this proscenium," Spielberg said from inside 92Y’s Kaufman Concert Hall.
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Although the movie was once the highest grossing film of all time, in the more than four decades since the movie has premiered, Spielberg has spoken at length about one of his regrets with the feature.
"When E.T. was re-released [in 2002], I actually digitized 5 shots where ‘E.T.’ went from being a puppet to a digital puppet and I also replaced the gun when the F.B.I. runs up on the van, now they're walkie-talkies. So, there’s a really bad version of ‘E.T.’ where I took my cue from ‘Star Wars’ and all of the digital enhancements of ‘A New Hope’ that George [Lucas] put in, and I went ahead, because the marketing at Universal thought we need[ed] something to get an audience back, and see the movie so I did a few touch up[s] in the film," he told Screen Rant years ago.
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"Social media wasn’t as profound as it is today but what was just beginning, you know, erupted a loud, negative voice about, ‘how could you ruin our favorite childhood film by taking the guns away and putting walkie-talkies in their hands among other things.’ So, I learned a big lesson and that’s the last time I decided to ever mess with the past. What’s done is done, and um, I’ll never go back and do another movie I’ve made and I have control over to enhance or changes."