Is An E.T. Sequel Ever Happening? The OG Film's Stars Have Spoken Out About It
"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" isn't just a perfect movie, it's a delicate one. Director Steven Spielberg was coming off a rip-snorter of an adventure film in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which, following the (unjustified) critical drubbing he received for "1941," reestablished him as Hollywood's preeminent orchestrator of escapist entertainments. Given his box office bona fides, he had clout to burn, and could've easily mounted a David Lean-sized epic (which had to be tempting considering that "Lawrence of Arabia" is one of his favorite movies). But he saw a piece of his melancholy childhood in Melissa Mathison's tale of a boy and his alien buddy, and let his heart be his guide instead of his ego.
Released on June 11, 1982, "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" hung out in the box-office Top 10 well into 1983. It was the highest-grossing movie of all time globally until Spielberg one-upped himself commercially 10 years later with "Jurassic Park." But unlike previous runaway blockbusters like "Gone with the Wind" and "Star Wars," "E.T." wasn't a spectacle. It was just a humanistic yarn in which a child of divorce bonds strongly with a scared, stranded visitor from another planet, and does everything he can to get his newfound friend back home. People didn't line up time and time again for "E.T." to experience rollercoaster thrills; they went back for the catharsis.
You can't say this about most blockbusters, which is why I'm grateful Spielberg has stuck to his guns over the last 41 years and resisted the urge to make a sequel. Still, nostalgia-addled moviegoers occasionally clamor for an Elliot/E.T. reunion, which means it's worth revisiting why the sequel is never, ever going to happen — even though there is a very real treatment for a potential follow-up.
Why hasn't E.T. 2 happened yet?
Steven Spielberg has been adamant that there will never be a sequel, but he did entertain the notion while the film was cleaning up in U.S. theaters during its initial release. We'll get to the premise of that blessedly scrapped movie in a moment, but I think that even if a young screenwriter came out of nowhere with a screenplay as heartfelt and beautifully nuanced as Melissa Mathison's original work, Spielberg would reject it out of hand.
A little over a decade ago, Spielberg had this to say to an audience at the American Film Institute:
"Sequels can be very dangerous because they compromise your truth as an artist. I think a sequel to 'E.T.' would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity. People only remember the latest episode, while the pilot tarnishes."
I find it fascinating that he used the word "virginity" instead of "innocence," but that's a think piece for another time. All that matters for the purposes of this article is that Spielberg views "E.T." as a pure film. He's 76 years old and trying to make every project count. He recently dipped out of the Indiana Jones franchise. He's never going back.
Everything the cast has said about E.T. 2
Oftentimes, the stars of a smash hit are eager to revisit a previous triumph (and score a nifty payday in the process), but Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore, who played Elliott and Gertie, are chill with the idea of leaving a masterpiece alone. Per Thomas in a 2022 interview with /Film's Ryan Scott:
"I think it should be left alone, but there's always been talk of a sequel. There was talk in the early '80s, because the studio was really pushing for it in light of the success that it had theatrically. But I don't know. I think it's really sad that we've lost Melissa Mathison, who was the screenwriter of 'E.T.,' because if anybody could have made it happen it was her. And that would've been the best kind of throughline for a sequel."
In terms of purity, it's hard not to cock an eyebrow at Spielberg's decision to bring Thomas and E.T. back together for a xFinity commercial, but the filmmaker has always treated marketing as separate from his art. "I think the commercial was as close as we're going to get to a sequel and that's why Spielberg okayed it," said Thomas.
Barrymore, who was six years old when she charmed us all as the precocious Gertie, told Entertainment Tonight in 2018 that Spielberg never seriously considered another film. "I will say that in the early '80s there was not a lot of talk of sequels," she said. "But he never wanted to make them, because he felt like what he did is just what it should be." She was still a child when her director told her, "Nope, we're never going to make a sequel, it's just as it is."
What could happen in E.T. 2?
You don't become the king of Hollywood without leaving your options open, no matter how artistically distasteful they may be, so you shouldn't be surprised to learn that Steven Spielberg and Melissa Mathison worked up a treatment for a sequel titled "E.T. Nocturnal Fears." You may, however, be shocked that the duo who'd made the kindest, sweetest blockbuster of all time wanted to take the potential franchise in a wildly dark direction.
The dearly missed BirthMoviesDeath wrote up the treatment several years ago, and, well, it's a doozy. The plot centered on a carnivorous offshoot of E.T.'s species following the coordinates beamed out into the cosmos by the jury-rigged Speak & Spell, and luring Elliott, Gertie, and older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) into the woods. The trio believes they're to be reunited with E.T., but are instead captured and tortured by these unfriendly aliens, who are, for whatever reason, hot to track down their long-necked compatriot.
This time out, it's up to the adults, namely Dee Wallace's Mary and Peter Coyote's Keys, to rescue the kids. In the end, it's E.T. who rides in to save the day. The treatment could be viewed as a precursor to Spielberg's disturbing "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Clearly, he was working through something during this period. Thankfully, he didn't taint the specialness of his masterpiece with a sour film built around interplanetary child abuse.
Who will the stars of E.T. 2 be?
Probably not O.J. Simpson. Mel Gibson, James Woods, and Ezra Miller are likely out as well.
This is purely hypothetical, but the principals are all still with us. Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Robert MacNaughton, Dee Wallace and Peter Coyote could reprise their roles if Steven Spielberg suddenly decided he had to bring E.T. back to Earth. Pat Welsh, the voice of E.T., passed away in 1995, while Carlo Rambaldi, the creature SFX maestro who constructed the character, left us in 2012, so the DNA of the title character would be altered to some degree.
She wasn't in the movie, but I think the main reason an "E.T." sequel should never happen is Melissa Mathison's absence from the choir. Again, this is a delicate movie, and her gentle approach countered Spielberg's more cynical instincts (such as in the ending of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," where Richard Dreyfuss' Roy Neary opts to ditch his family and explore the universe with a seemingly benign alien race). There's simply no reason to run this back without her. Also, composer John Williams is winding down. I don't know if he could deliver a majestic score on par with his Oscar-winning 1982 composition.
Elliott and E.T. were lucky to find each other, and we were so very fortunate to experience their improbable friendship. Leave it be.