“Not only is it incredibly artistic, it pulls on many primal emotions from our childhood,” says film critic MollyHaskell, author of the 2017 book Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films. “It’s scary, and yet it’s like the taming of a nightmare.” Most of us well remember the coming-of-age tale about Elliott (HenryThomas), who befriends a wide-eyed extraterrestrial accidentally stranded on Earth. Along with his friends and family, Elliott must help “E.T.” go home while evading government agents who are determined to derail those plans. “I remember reading the script behind closed doors at the studio and thinking it would do a lot for the world,” says DeeWallace, who played Elliott’s single mom, Mary. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and released on June 11, 1982, the movie (it opened in 1,103 theaters and grossed $11.8 million during its opening weekend) became an instant cultural phenomenon as well as a Best Picture Oscar nominee with four wins. “This wasn’t just a movie,” Haskell says. “It was a blockbuster with incredible marketing that could play in any country.” (It also made a star out of a young pigtailed DrewBarrymore.) For its 40th anniversary, we “phone home” to celebrate the movie’s enduring legacy.

E.T. Movie Trivia

  1. The granddaughter of legendary actor JohnBarrymore, 6-year-old Drew Barrymore already had appeared in commercials and a few smaller films when she charmed Spielberg in her audition for little sister Gertie. On the set, “she was a feisty and talented little girl,” Dee Wallace says. The first day of production, “I was sitting in a tall director’s chair and Drew looked at me and said, ‘Hi Dee, I’m going to sit in your lap now.’”
  2. For Henry Thomas’ audition, Spielberg asked the 9-year-old actor to improvise a scene in which a government agent (played by a member of the film’s casting team) wants to snatch E.T. from him. Thomas immediately broke down in tears, begging the man not to take his far-out friend. The scene was so moving that Spielberg told him on the spot, “OK, kid, you got the job.” You can watch the clip, which just may make you cry, below.
  3. The scene in science class when Elliott frees all the frogs, saving them from dissection, is based on Spielberg’s own past. He was apparently so aghast when asked to cut open a frog in school that he released several of the amphibians.
  4. In an alternate universe, E.T. could have been sweet on M&M’s. But Universal Studios reportedly wouldn’t let Mars executives read the final script, so the company passed on the cross-promotion. (Mars also didn’t like the look of the alien.) When Spielberg’s people approached the Hershey Company about using Hershey’s Kisses, they instead suggested their new peanut-butter-filled bits called Reese’s Pieces, and agreed to spend $1 million on a cross-promotional campaign. The agreement paid off, as the company reported a 65 percent increase in sales two weeks after the premiere.
  5. In the Halloween scene (shot in October 1981), Elliott and his older brother (RobertMacNaughton) dress up E.T. so he can elude authorities and go into the forest to contact his mother ship. On the set, Spielberg joined the fun by dressing up as an old woman and bobbing for apples with the young cast members. “Steven really understands children and treated it like a big holiday,” Wallace says. “He kept an organized set, but it was still loose.”
  6. Ever notice the Star Wars toys scattered around Elliott’s room or how E.T. excitedly spots a child in a Yoda costume during the Halloween scene? That’s Spielberg’s nod to his friend George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977). Lucas waved back in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace: During the sequence set in the Galactic Senate Chamber, three E.T.s sit among the other races. It was Lucas’ fanciful acknowledgment that Spielberg’s little hero and his ilk exist within the same far, far away galaxy as his own blockbusters’ characters.
  7. In the most iconic sequence, Elliott and E.T. soar on a bicycle into the moonlit sky to the sound of composer John Williams’ majestic Oscar-winning score. (The image of a hooded boy on a bike in front of the moon still serves as the logo for Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment production company.) Visual effects supervisor DennisMuren and his team at Industrial Light & Magic shot a low moon among the trees, using maps and charts to coordinate the scene. Elliott and E.T. were added during post-production.
  8. For a 20th-anniversary reissue of the film, Spielberg digitally altered scenes with government baddies brandishing firearms at the bicycle roadblock, changing their handheld guns to walkie-talkies. He later admitted it was a mistake and reversed his action. “I got overly sensitive,” the director admitted. “I realized what I had done was I had robbed people who loved E.T. of their memories.”
  9. So, why was there never a E.T. Part II? Spielberg and screenwriter MelissaMathison toyed with the idea, even reportedly working on a story in which Elliott and his friends are abducted by aliens and need to contact E.T. for rescue. But Spielberg decided that any follow-up would detract from the magic of the original. As a result, “E.T. remains unique and undiluted,” Haskell says. “It’s not a franchise stretched too thin.”
  10. The legendary NeilDiamond wrote the No. 5 hit “Heartlight” with CaroleBayerSager and BurtBacharach after the three saw E.T. at a screening in New York City. And though E.T.—whose beating heart did, indeed, light up through his translucent torso—is never mentioned by name, the lyrics do reference a certain bicycle ride “across the moon.” Universal executives sued for copyright infringement and Diamond settled the case for a reported $25,000.
  11. The toy that helped E.T. phone home has also appeared in Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Bride of Chucky and in a variety of music videos.
  12. Harrison Ford ended up on the cutting room floor. Fresh from working with Spielberg on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford’s small role as Elliott’s school principal never saw the light of day. (Ford was married to screenwriter Mathison from 1983 to 2001.)
  13. The hit 1980s-set Netflix series Stranger Things—about a group of young friends and the supernatural forces around them—has featured references galore to E.T. over the past five years. Notably in the first season, the group disguises Eleven (MillieBobbyBrown) at school by giving her a blond wig and pink dress. Of course, that’s how Gertie dressed up the alien decades earlier. The group also try to escape the bad guys on their bikes.

E.T. By the Numbers

  1. 8 Weeks: That’s how long it took Melissa Mathison to write the screenplay, based on Spielberg’s plot instructions. Spielberg later said, “Melissa’s heart was just glowing over that movie.”
  2. $350 Million+: That’s the North American box-office take after E.T. ended its theatrical run one year after opening, making it the highest-grossing film of the 1980s. When adjusted for inflation, the film still ranks No. 4 of all time.
  3. $380: That’s how much soap opera actress PatWelsh was paid for 9.5 hours of voicing E.T. During the post-production process, Welsh, and several others—including actress DebraWinger—contributed their vocals. During shooting, Spielberg himself uttered the iconic, “E.T. phone home,” among other lines.
  4. $75: That’s how much you’d pay on Ebay for an unwrapped vintage E.T. TV tray. More than 1,000 E.T.-related toys are available on the site.
  5. 1988: The year E.T. was finally available on VHS
  6. 25: That’s the number of lawsuits MCA/Universal filed trying to stop the sale of a half-million phony E.T. dolls.

Steven Spielberg’s Aliens

  1. There was more than one E.T. used for filming. Some were animatronic puppets operated by hydraulics; others were actors in various rubber getups. The scene where E.T. gets a little tipsy was performed by 11-year-old MatthewDeMeritt, an actor born without legs. A special E.T. suit allowed him to walk using his arms.
  2. When brainstorming about E.T., Spielberg thought of adapting the Close Encounters aliens. When that seemed too scary for the movie he had in mind, he repurposed the idea, turning the evil extraterrestrials into malevolent ghosts—and into the 1982 thriller Poltergeist, which he co-wrote and co-produced (but didn’t direct). The aliens in Spielberg’s 1977 drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind had big heads and long arms.

E.T.’s Most Famous Fans

E.T. had a magic touch, all right. Here’s some of the folks the cuddly alien inspired and influenced since coming down to Earth.

Colin Farrell

During his March 2022 appearance on the YouTube show Hot Ones, Farrell revealed his passion for the film—and how Henry Thomas’ performance helped give him the idea to pursue acting as a young boy in Ireland. “What I thought was remarkable was the excitement of that creature coming from a distant planet… And when they take off for the first time in that forest and they start flying, I got goose bumps,” he says, reporting that he rewatched it over the holidays and wept.

Javier Bardem

Recently asked to name his childhood movie crush, the No Country for Old Men and Being the Ricardos star named a certain Reese’s Pieces–loving alien. “E.T., I remember I saw the film three times in a row,” the Spanish-born Oscar winner recalled. He was also starstruck by the director. “I remember when I met Steven Spielberg. He’s such a wonderful man. What an artist.”

Michael Jackson

“He and I are alike in many ways,” Jackson told Ebony of E.T. in 1982. “He’s in a strange place and wants to be accepted—which is a situation that I have myself in many times when traveling.” Indeed, the same year that the superstar released the mega-successful Thriller, he narrated the tale of the alien’s visit to Earth in the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial storybook album. QuincyJones produced both projects. Next, Here’s a Look at Steven Spielberg’s Net Worth and How He Earned It

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