Why Was There Never a Sequel to the Blockbuster Film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial?

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 an instant pop-culture phenomenon upon its release in 1982. After it turned into a mega-hit upon hitting the theaters, there were plans in the works for a sequel, but a follow-up to the film ended up never happening.

When E.T. topped the box office upon its initial release, Spielberg knew that he had something big on his hands and he sat down with Melissa Mathison (who had drafted the screenplay for the first movie from his original story) to hammer out a sequel to the film. The new movie would have focused on the arrival of another group of aliens that looked like E.T. (though they would be albino), but who were 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 beings only to find that they have sinister intentions, followed by their abduction as the aliens would 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 free Elliot and his siblings from the bad aliens. The working title for this 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 one case a creator decided not to try and milk one of his works for every dime he could.

On an additional note, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial could potentially be considered a sequel of sorts to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He originally got the idea from the 1977 film when he wondered what would happen if one of those aliens got stranded on Earth. And E.T. does vaguely resemble some of the beings seen in the final scene from Close Encounters.