Sci Fi Trifles: Useless but essential pop culture tidbits and trivia from the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror that once you have read them you don’t know how you have lived so long without knowing them.
Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is one of the most beloved and highest grossing films of all-time and it turned into a pop-culture phenomenon after its release in 1982. But did you know that early after E.T. hit the theaters, there was a sequel to the film in the works?
When E.T. topped the box office upon its initial release, Spielberg knew that he had a huge hit on his hands and he sat down with Melissa Mathison (who had drafted the screenplay from his original story) and began to hammer a sequel to the film. The follow-up would have involved the arrival of another group of aliens that looked like E.T. (though they are albino), but who are not quite as cuddly. They were actually to be an evil, rogue group of aliens that had been at war with E.T.’s people. Elliot and his brother and sister would have greeted the new E.T.’s only to find that they have sinister intentions as the aliens abduct them and begin to experiment on them (a reversal of sorts from the first movie when the government officials wanted to experiment on E.T.). However, the E.T. that we all know and love eventually arrives to save the day and frees Elliot and his siblings from the bad E.T.s. The working title for the sequel was E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears.
This story never got further than initial draft stages (the treatment was only nine pages long), and the outline that Spielberg and Mathison cobbled together definitely represented a darker turn from the original film. Spielberg apparently soured on the idea shortly thereafter and ultimately gave up on producing a sequel claiming that it “would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity”. In this day of multi-billion dollar movie franchises (something which Spielberg himself helped usher in), it is nice to know that in at least once case a creator decided not to try and milk one of his works for every dime he could.
Source: Film Buff Online
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