Category - Movies
Steven Spielberg Says He Purposely Blocked a Sequel to One of His Most Iconic Films
Steven Spielberg has only directed four sequels in his storied Hollywood career. And, according to his own account, he made absolutely sure it wasn’t five.
After the massive success of the director’s 1982 sci-fi classic E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the idea of a follow-up film was pushed. But after flirting with a sequel, he eventually stopped the film from happening. He recalled his “hard-fought” win in conversation with one of the movie’s stars, Drew Barrymore, at the TCM Classic Film Festival in New York City, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“That was a real hard-fought victory because I didn’t have any rights. Before E.T., I had some rights, but I didn’t have a lot of rights,” he told the event’s crowd. “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.”
The Jurassic Park director revealed he wouldn’t have had the power had E.T. flopped.
“I got it after E.T. because of its success,” he said.
Spielberg went deeper into his reasons for not wanting to jump into a second movie, even though he did entertain the idea for a short time.
“I just did not want to make a sequel. 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 for it called The Green Planet, which was all going to take place at E.T.’s home,” he said. “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.”
Barrymore, who was six and seven at the time the movie was filmed, had her own memories of speaking with Spielberg about a sequel.
“I remember you saying, ‘We are not making a sequel to E.T.’ I think I was eight. I remember being like, ‘OK, that’s a bummer but I totally get it,’” she said.

Barrymore felt it was a smart choice to not pursue a second movie because it would have inevitably been compared to the first, calling the original “perfect.”
E.T. won four Oscars and was the highest-grossing film of 1982. It was the first movie to earn more than $300 million at the U.S. box office.
According to ScreenRant, Spielberg had strongly considered a sequel, and one even entered the initial development stages. A script supposedly was worked on with the original’s writer Melissa Mathison. The script, and treatment—which can be found online fairly easily
—went in a much darker direction that would have seen evil aliens coming to Earth, and E.T. becoming the movie’s savior. The working title was
E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears.
Clearly, turning E.T. into a horror franchise wasn't the best option. As it stands, the only other time we've seen aliens from E.T.'s species was as a brief Easter egg in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In case you missed it in 1999, there are a few E.T.s hanging out in the Galactic Senate when Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) begs for help.
Agreeing with Barrymore, Spielberg ultimately decided against moving forward to protect the first film. And so, unless we're counting cameos in Star Wars, there is not now and never will be an E.T. sequel.
E.T. is available to rent/purchase on Amazon, Apple, and elsewhere.
Related: Why Spielberg's Masterpiece, 'Jaws', Is More Than Cheap Thrills