CHAPTER 12: SUCCESS AND POPULARITY
Scott Mendelson (box office analyst): E.T. broke numerous box office records and was the first motion picture to earn over $300 million domestic in a single release. (Star Wars by this time had earned over $300 million, too, but had crossed that milestone during one of its numerous re-issues.) And E.T. held the all-time Number One position (domestically) for the longest period of time since Gone with the Wind.
Joseph McBride: Art Murphy, our box office maven at Variety, told me that Spielberg had such a success with the audience with E.T. because he was honest about the reality that half of the marriages in the U.S. were ending in divorce. Murf told me the guys running Disney at the time were still trying to make the kind of movies Walt had made, but that made them behind the times, which was why their movies were so bad and failing to find much of an audience. Murf Said that Walt always moved with the times, and if he had been around in 1982, he would have made movies that acknowledged the reality of divorce.
William Kallay: E.T. was a rare film that made audiences laugh out loud one minute and then be in tears by the final fade out. People connected to the friendship and love between Elliott and E.T. This was a film that made unemotional people cry. It was a film that young kids and their parents could watch together that still had a modern edge without being sugary sweet.
Saul Pincus: E.T. was significant for me because in a lot of ways, I was Elliott. I was a 12-year-old nerd, an only child who looked to the stars and wished I had a sibling. The film felt effortless, providing the emotional escape I didn’t know I needed.
William Kallay: The film significantly cemented that just one blockbuster movie could make obscene amounts of money, drive sales of candy (Reese’s Pieces), increase sales of LP records of the soundtrack, spawn songs dedicated to itself (Neil Diamond’s Turn On Your Heartlight), create a mega fan in Michael Jackson, cause audiences to come over and over to the theater to see it, and simply make people collectively laugh and cry without shame.
Ray Morton: The film’s success transformed Spielberg into significant public figure—he not only became the most famous movie director in the world, but also his own brand: the modern Walt Disney—a filmmaker whose name identified a special form of entertainment (animation for Disney; family-friendly fantasy for Spielberg) and an assurance of quality to the public at large.
William Kallay: I always saw E.T. as a boy and his dog fable. Under Spielberg’s direction, it became so much more than that. The story soared like an epic movie, yet had a tender heart and audiences fell in love.
John Scoleri: After E.T. surpassed Star Wars on the all-time box office chart, Ralph [McQuarrie] was tasked with creating a piece of art for a congratulatory trade ad, which had Star Wars characters standing below E.T. holding a sheet with which they had lobbed him skyward!
CHAPTER 13: SIGNIFICANCE AND INFLUENCE
Mark A. Altman: It’s remarkable in that it really is the progenitor of what we call the "four quadrant" movie. A film that not only appeals to kids, but adults and the kid in all of us. It’s also a remarkably crafted film from the cinematography from the great Allen Daviau, the magnificent score from John Williams, striking visual effects from ILM and, of course, the virtuoso direction from Steven Spielberg at the height of his powers.
Mike Matessino: Picking up on the point about the phenomenon going on all summer long in 1982, one thing I remember is that E.T. was that rare film that hit all demographics. It was a movie that was okay to bring little kids to but also the grandparents. I saw a lot of that and it was pretty amazing. Unless you were there, it’s hard to really convey what a phenomenon it was. The other big significant thing about it, from my perspective, is that it seemed to be the last movie that achieved this level of success that didn’t feel calculated to do so or was driven by merchandising. That all came as the result of a success that no one saw coming, and, in fact, there was a bit problem with unlicensed merchandise appearing all over the place because of the time involved in making the officially licensed product deals, which took time.
Brian Herzlinger: E.T.’s significance is wide-ranging. From single-handedly making Reese’s Pieces a household name, to the iconic line “E.T. phone home,” it ignited the imaginations of generations of adults and children alike wondering, “are we really alone In this universe?” No other film experience explores the love, loss, and exhilaration in friendship or family as well as E.T. To explore these themes through the relationship of a child and an abandoned alien is not only a daunting task, which could have overwhelmingly misfired (i.e. the less popular film, Mac and Me), but it is handled so brilliantly in the direction, script, performances, cinematography, score, and editing, and for those reasons the film’s significance endures.
Joseph McBride: It’s ironic that people who misunderstand Spielberg think he sentimentalizes suburbia, when in fact he portrays it in Close Encounters, E.T., Poltergeist, et al, as a hellish environment from which his characters need to escape.
James Kendrick: E.T. is artful in the way so few summer blockbusters are today. The patience with which Spielberg sets up the story and introduces the characters and establishes the mood and tone is just beautiful. However, the film’s true significance lies in how powerfully it connects with viewers emotionally—how it moves them and draws them into such concern, admiration, and (dare I say it?) love for this dumpy, oddball extra-terrestrial. It is also significant for how it demonstrated the breadth of the science fiction genre. Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. eschews all the action and adventure that so many sci-fi movies wanted to embody in the years following Star Wars and instead used the genre to explore ideas and emotions.
Caseen Gaines: E.T. redefined what could be a summer blockbuster. It’s a small, intimate picture with a very small cast that had outsized impact around the world. It also firmly cemented Steven Spielberg as one of the most prolific film directors of all time. He had significant successes before E.T., of course, but this film was both a departure from some of his earlier works and also came to best encapsulate what a "Steven Spielberg film" looks and feels like. Beyond that, it also led to the creation of Amblin Entertainment, which was responsible for a slew of innovative films. It was the first film Kathleen Kennedy produced, introduced the world to Drew Barrymore... the impact of E.T. is hard to just sum up in a few sentences.
Steven Awalt: I honestly worry sometimes that it’s lost something of its importance and reputation with audiences as time passes us by and culture changes into something it certainly wasn’t back in 1982. Life truly was simpler in its way then, where a story about a little lost alien and a lonely boy finding friendship could enchant audiences around the world, in completely different cultures. The basics of E.T. are so universal across humanity, which is the key reason for its unprecedented popularity when it was first released to theaters in 1982-1983. Now, a modest gem like E.T.—and remember, this was from the biggest filmmaker of that era, coming after the runaway successes of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark—I don’t know, the landscape of movie culture and popular culture in general just seems so different today. We’re living in a “post-modern” age, certainly a less innocent, more knowing, sadly cynical age. Even in the space for family films, the majority of releases are either hyperkinetic digital creations like the Marvel movies (which I would argue push the definition of films for the whole family to begin with, given the scale of their violence) or the standard-issue CG of the American animation market where too often so much looks the same and there’s a tiresome preponderance of witty, cynical talking animals. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy Marvel or CG animated films, but you look at E.T. next to the things that are popular nowadays, and there’s a gentleness to E.T., a calm, patient hand building the narrative and emotional movements of the film that we really don’t see in the “throw everything at the wall” hyper-kinetics of modern media. I probably sound like an old man shouting at computer-generated clouds, but I miss the more handmade feel of the movies we grew up with in the 1970s and 1980s. They felt more shaped by the hands of humans, especially so when you have such strong authorial voices like that of Steven Spielberg and his peers.
CHAPTER 14: THE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE
April Wright (director, Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace): Many of us experienced E.T. for the first time on a big screen, larger than life in a dark theater full of strangers, where we all believed the magical scene where Elliott’s bicycle flew across the sky in front of us. There’s something special about seeing films in theaters where you can be swept away and have a very intimate experience with the story and the characters. It creates an experience and implants a memory that doesn’t happen in the same way when you’re watching something at home.
John Sittig (Pacific Theatres): We hosted the world premiere and exclusive Los Angeles County first-run at the Cinerama Dome. The after party for the premiere was held in the Dome parking lot. They had a giant tent. The parking lot under the tent had artificial grass, the E.T. spaceship with rotating lights was hanging at the top of the tent, and the shed from Elliott’s backyard was in the corner. There were probably seventy-five picnic tables with potted Geranium plants on each table. (It was supposed to look like Elliott’s back yard.) The premiere was really star-studded: I recall Hugh Hefner, Jane Fonda, Helen Reddy, Marty Feldman…. Feldman said he really liked the film but was dismayed that he was not offered the title role!
Saul Pincus: Between June 1982 and February 1983, [I saw E.T.] twelve times. The first three months required waiting two hours in long lines, but cinemas were still full well into the fall. I saw the film so often that specific scratches preceding reel changes are still burnt into my retinas, even now when watching pristine versions on home video.
Mike Matessino: I saw it fifty-one times in ten months as it played all through 1982 and then through awards season into April 1983. I couldn’t get enough of it. I went to the reissue in 1985 a few times and to a few screenings prior to the 2002 reissue, which, of course, kicked off with the live-to-picture performance of the score, conducted by John Williams at the Shrine Auditorium. I’m not a fan of that version of the film, and I’m glad it’s sort of faded into the background, but that concert was really special.
Steven Awalt: In 1982 in the theater, only once, coming from a working-class family of eight as I did, but over the last four decades I’ve seen it more times in the theater and at home than I’ve kept track of since. It’s always a film best seen on a big screen, but I am so grateful to have it at home, and in the very best format of this moment, 4K UHD.
William Kallay: I saw E.T. twice that summer. The first was at a pathetic and tiny theater in Brea, California. The second time was at Edwards “Big” Newport Cinema in Newport Beach, California. Big Newport had over a thousand seats, curtains covering a huge screen, and good Six-Track Dolby Stereo. I will say that the 70mm screening of E.T. at Big Newport was far superior to the 35mm Brea screening; much brighter picture and the sound was phenomenal.
Brian Herzlinger: [I’ve seen E.T.] too many times to count. Just this year I took my pregnant wife and two children (8 and 5) to see it on the big screen for their first time. It is always an amazing experience watching the film with first-timers. Seeing their reactions is the best, and as a filmmaker, being exposed to Spielberg’s craftsmanship is always a welcome Saturday afternoon at the movies.
Mark A. Altman: I only saw it once in a theater and it was many, many years until I saw it again. The most I ever enjoyed it was watching it with my kids who were seeing it for the first time a few years ago and I gained a newfound appreciation for it having always liked it, but never loving it until a more recent viewing where I discovered how truly special it was.
Ross Melnick (Professor of Film and Media Studies at University of California Santa Barbara; author, Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World): E.T. was an indelible moviegoing experience for many, particularly those like me who are in the later years of Generation X. Some might have been too young for the original release of Star Wars in 1977 but in E.T. our generation was featured front and center by Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore. In Jaws, Close Encounters, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg focused on the struggles of adults and parents. In E.T., Spielberg’s focus, for the first of many times, was on their children and grandchildren. The film not only brought audiences together in suburban, urban, and rural theaters but highlighted the movie theater as the place where kids could share their greatest fears and dreams together in a public not private space. E.T. certainly became a perennial cable and home video hit, but it penetrated the American consciousness through repeated trips to the movie theater and grabbed hold of my generation like few movies before or since. That sense of a collective feeling—an unwritten Reese’s Pieces, flying bicycle vernacular—began inside America’s movie houses and was revisited through every theatrical re-release, every new video edition, and every trip on the E.T. ride at Universal Studios. In 1982, movie theaters created those moments and they shaped a generation who returned year after year chasing that same generational, collective moment of shared excitement.
CHAPTER 15: THE SUMMER OF ’82
William Kallay: That was one heck of a summer, wasn’t it?
Mark A. Altman: Having just finished a documentary about the films of 1982, I have to say it was an utterly fascinating year. The sheer diversity of the type of films that were released were astounding from Conan The Barbarian to The Verdict, Fast Times At Ridgemont High to First Blood, The Road Warrior to Tron. As a counterpoint to E.T., you had The Thing which was utterly destroyed at the box office by the success of E.T. Adrienne Barbeau tells us a great story in our doc that as her and [then husband] John [Carpenter] returned from a vacation in Hawaii, they picked up a magazine with E.T. on the cover and John instantly knew his "bad E.T." was DOA. It’s interesting because the optimistic, hopeful films were the ones that really worked at the time. It tied in with Ronald Reagan’s so-called "Morning In America." The idea that after Watergate and the Iran Hostage Crisis, things were looking more bright and hopeful in the U.S. Of course, we forget the rampant inflation, pro-business/anti-consumer, anti-gay policies and secret deal his campaign cut with the Iranians so the hostages wouldn’t be released until after the election, but for the sake of argument it was a more optimistic, hopeful time in America. Darker movies like Blade Runner and The Dark Crystal underperformed but more hopeful, bright movies like Star Trek II, An Officer and a Gentleman, Rocky III and Tootsie were huge hits.
Steven Awalt: E.T. was surely the film amongst the genre offering of that year that had the greatest four-quad appeal, meaning it appealed to all audiences overall—from kids to teens to adults to the elderly. As movies have tended to go since at least the 1950s into today, once teens had “pocket money” of their own, the movies have been dominated by films that appeal to (roughly) fourteen to thirty-four-year-olds for various reasons. Even a film like Mr. Spielberg’s production of Poltergeist, which premiered the week before E.T. didn’t capture the four-quadrants since despite being PG, it was a bit too rough for younger audiences to enjoy, and the same presumably applied to elderly audience members as well. Likewise, phenomenal movies like Blade Runner or The Thing had a very narrow audience, being R-rated and hard sci-fi or too violent for many, while films like Tron and Wrath of Khan too had more limited appeal likely squared more at teenage through 30-something males. E.T. appealed to most ages, male and female, and across race and class, since it’s not really science fiction (even with its sci-fi trappings), certainly not violent, and it’s a fun, exciting, appealing movie about friendship without prejudices.
Mike Matessino: This picks up on the points I’ve alluded to about the movie not being calculated for success and also the fact that it really came as a surprise. You just don’t know the answer. I think it’s because it was so relatable, it felt like the real world, but there was something about how it all came together as a movie that, for lack of a better phrase, felt like it lifted you out of yourself. It left you with a great feeling of optimism and with a feeling of joy about just how good a movie could be.
Saul Pincus: I think E.T. was unique because it was grounded fantasy, positive, and was a complete, left-field surprise. We didn’t know what we were in for—even those of us who considered ourselves “in the know” (i.e. read Starlog).
Caseen Gaines: I think E.T. works so well because it’s a sci-fi fantasy film that doesn’t treat itself as a sci-fi fantasy film. The movie is honest and grounded in reality. You know you’re watching an animatronic, or a person in a suit, but there’s so much heart there.
James Kendrick: E.T. was so popular because it connected with audiences in the way so many movies don’t. Lots of movies—especially summer blockbusters and genre movies—keep us enthralled while they’re playing, but then dissipate in the days after. E.T. sticks with you and makes you want to see it again and take other people with you. Despite being a science fiction film, it is fundamentally honest in its emotions and drama, and people connect with that.
Brian Herzlinger: For me, the other impactful movies from 1982 were Grease 2 and Poltergeist. None of the other sci-fi movies that year really impacted me at the time. Blade Runner was cool to watch, but too cerebral for a six-year-old to really understand. The Dark Crystal was memorable, but it was also quite dark thematically, so it didn’t rise to the top of the bunch. My most vivid memory of moviegoing that year was when I went to see E.T. for the first time, and the film actually broke during the scene when E.T. was getting drunk. (Back when the projection used real tangible film!) The theater lights went on, and the movie on the screen stopped as the projectionist spliced the film together before continuing. I didn’t see that sequence in its entirety until home video!
