Steven Spielberg has created many sci-fi classics (or rather, brought them to the big screen), with E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial being one of them. It's an incredibly heartfelt, timeless story (in a symbolic sense) about growing up, friendship, responsibility, as well as acceptance and its challenges. The film had a beautiful conclusion that left no eye dry, but our hero, Elliott, had to realize that E.T. wouldn't be safe in this world, and that he had his own home, no matter how much he had come to love him. The film was an incredible success, with a staggering $619M in box office earnings, considering its $10.5M budget (it was re-released between 1985 and 2002, which pushed the global total to $792.9M). It's no surprise, then, that Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison wrote a film proposal for a potential sequel, but fortunately, Spielberg decided against it and fought to make sure the Universal studio didn’t have anyone else direct it.
The director and one of the film's (child) stars, Drew Barrymore, recently participated in a conversation during the TCM Classic Film Festival: New York Pop-Up x 92NY, according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter. The proposed sequel to the sci-fi classic was titled E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears, and its rather outlandish plot involved Elliott and his friends being kidnapped by evil aliens, with only one person capable of saving them – guess who? Spielberg realized that this would retroactively ruin the original film, so he decided against it. But, as he recalled during the New York event, it wasn’t easy to prevent it from happening:
"It was a really hard-fought victory because I didn’t own the rights. Before E.T., I had some influence in this regard, but not a lot of authority. So, I didn’t have the power to 'freeze' the project, meaning to stop the studio from making the sequel. Because if we had that power, we could prevent anything, any sequel, remake, or further use of the IP. So, at that time, I didn’t have the right to do that. But of course, I eventually gained that power because of the success of E.T.."
The director then explained why he changed his mind and didn’t want E.T. 2 to see the light of day:
"I just didn’t want a sequel. I played with the idea a little – but really just a little, to make sure I could come up with some story for it – and the only thing I could think of was a book that someone else had written, called E.T. – The Green Planet, which was set entirely on E.T.'s home planet. This story would’ve taken us to E.T.'s homeland, where we would’ve seen how our hero lived. But it worked better as a novel than I think it would have as a film."
Spielberg mentioned that E.T. was a very important, personal film for him because, up until then, he had just been a cinephile, wanting to make films and that was it; he didn’t have too many plans for life. But E.T. made him realize he wanted to become a father. Barrymore, who was only 6 or 7 years old when the film was being made and released, recalls wanting a sequel, but now, as an adult, she understands it would have been a mistake. The actress shared her thoughts on this, addressing Spielberg:
"I remember him saying at the time, 'We're not doing an E.T. sequel.' I must have been around eight years old. So, as I recall, I didn’t really argue: 'Okay, that’s a bummer, but I totally get it.' I think it was a wise decision. I completely understand. What would the ending be? People would always compare it to the first one, so let’s just leave it perfect in its solitude […]."
