Steven Spielberg knew that lightning wouldn’t strike his alien twice.
“I just didn’t want to make a sequel,” the acclaimed filmmaker 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, per The Hollywood Reporter.
“I flirted with it a little bit – just a little bit to see if I (could) come up with a story – and all I could think about was a book written by someone who wrote the book before it, called ‘The Green Planet, all of which would take place at ET’s home,” he said, referring to William Kotzwinkle’s 1985 publication, which continued ET’s story from the 1982 blockbuster.
SPIELBERG TO REVISE OLD FILMS FOR A MODERN AUDIENCE, ADMITS ‘ERROR’ IN EDITING GUNS FROM ‘ET’
Director Steven Spielberg says that at one point he considered making a sequel to ‘ET the Extra-Terrestrial,’ but decided against it. (Mark Sennet/Getty Images)
“We could all go to E.T.’s house and see how E.T. lived. 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 the Extraterrestrial,” Early in his career, he said when follow-up discussions began, he didn’t have much pull within the industry. “That was a hard-fought victory because I had no rights. Before ‘ET’ I had some rights, but not many rights,” he explained.
“ET” previously held the record for the highest-grossing film of all time. (Universal/Getty Images)
“I didn’t actually 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. it after ‘ET’ because of its success.”
Barrymore, who shot the film when she was six and seven years old, told Spielberg that she remembered him being against a sequel from the start.
Steven Spielberg and Drew Barrymore pose with ET in 1982. (Mark Sennet/Getty Images)
“I remember you saying, ‘We’re not making a sequel to ‘ET’. I think I was eight. I remember saying, ‘Okay, that’s a shame, but I totally understand.'” Barrymore recalled. “I thought it was a smart choice. I understand it very well. Where do we go from here? They’re just going to compare it to the first and leave something that is perfect in itself open to exploration. It made so much sense.”
“I don’t plan on ever seeing ET anywhere outside of this stage,” Spielberg said from 92Y’s Kaufman Concert Hall.
Do you like what you read? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
Drew Barrymore and Steven Spielberg spoke onstage at the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92NY on Saturday and reminisced about 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, Spielberg has spoken at length about one of his regrets about the feature in the more than forty years since the film premiered.
“When ET was re-released (in 2002), I digitized five recordings of ‘ET’ changing from a doll to a digital doll and I also replaced the gun when the FBI came to the van, now they are walkie-talkies. -talkies. So there’s a really bad version of ‘ET’ that I got my inspiration from.Star Wars‘ and all the digital enhancements of ‘A New Hope’ that George (Lucas) made, and I continued because the marketing at Universal thought we needed something to get an audience back and make the film so I made a few adjustments to the film,” he said Screen Rant years ago.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
Steven Spielberg was criticized for the way a re-released version of the film was edited. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“Social media wasn’t as profound as it is now, but what was just beginning to bring out a loud, negative voice was: ‘how can you ruin our favorite children’s movie by taking away the guns and putting walkie-talkies in their cameras?’ 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 make another movie that I made and I have control over improving it or making changes.”
