Where to watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
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A stranded alien is discovered by a lonely young boy, who hides him at home and forms a close bond with him. Alongside his siblings, the boy tries to protect their new friend from authorities and help him reconnect with his distant home.
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, Peter Coyote, Dee Wallace, Erika Eleniak, K.C. Martel, C. Thomas Howell, Sean Frye, David M. O'Dell, Richard Swingler, Frank Toth
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Trivia & production notes
- Steven Spielberg conceived E.T. after his parents' divorce in 1960, imagining an alien companion to fill the emotional void left by his absent father.
- Screenwriter Melissa Mathison completed the first draft of E.T. in eight weeks, which Spielberg immediately deemed perfect without substantial revision needed.
- Columbia Pictures rejected the script, with executives calling it a "wimpy Walt Disney movie" and believing it would only appeal to young children, leading Spielberg to shop it to Universal instead.
- Universal acquired the E.T. script from Columbia for $1 million, while Columbia retained 5 percent of the film's net profits—a deal that proved highly lucrative for the studio.
- Henry Thomas won the role of Elliott by delivering a convincing improvised scene where he cried by thinking about his dead dog, despite a poor formal audition.
- Sound designer Ben Burtt hired Pat Welsh for E.T.'s voice work because her heavy smoking habit gave her voice a raspy quality he preferred, paying her $380 for nine-and-a-half hours of recording.
- Spielberg filmed Harrison Ford in a deleted scene as Elliott's school principal witnessing E.T. levitating objects, but cut it during post-production and kept Ford's face off-camera.
- Carlo Rambaldi designed E.T.'s face by blending features of Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein, and Ernest Hemingway, and gave the creature an extendable neck inspired by a painting of his own.
- The E.T. puppet cost $1.5 million to build and was performed by a combination of two little people and a 12-year-old actor born without legs who walked on his hands for scenes where E.T. moved awkwardly.
- Mars, Incorporated refused to allow M&M's in the film out of concern that E.T. would frighten children, so Hershey Company's Reese's Pieces became the product placement that launched the candy's sales into a dramatic spike.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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