After the failure of ‘1941’ Spielberg returned with double whammy that forever re-established his reputation. Raiders of the Lost Ark reassured studios that he could bring a film in on schedule and budget and E.T. would become the biggest box office earner surpassing his own blockbuster Jaws and George Lucas ‘Star Wars’ too. His small film about an extra-terrestrial cost a mere $10.5m but would go on to make $797m worldwide. So the studio obviously wanted an ET sequel and the director began mulling over ideas.
Reunited with Drew Barrymore one of the stars of the film he told her, ‘Before ‘E.T.,’ I had some rights, but I didn’t have a lot of rights. 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.”
He added, “I just did not want to make a sequel,” he continued. “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 called ‘The Green Planet,’ which was all going to take place at E.T.’s home. 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.”
That novel, ‘The Book of the Green Planet” was released in 1985 by author William Kotzwinkle, who had also written the official novelization of the original movie and the story saw E.T. returning to his home planet to discover it is not what he remembers leaving. He continues to observe Elliot grow up from across the galaxy.
E.T. held the record as biggest box office earner until Spielberg’s own Jurassic Park made $1,1billioin since then of course a whole load of films have surpassed that record either by James Cameron or Marvel films. However it is highly unlikely we’ll ever get an ET sequel certainly not while Spielberg is still alive.
source: variety
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