In 1982, director Steven Spielberg followed up Raiders of the Lost Ark with a family-centered feature about a young boy who meets an alien, based on his own childhood experience of creating an imaginary friend after his parents’ divorce. With a budget of just over $10 million, Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison brought the alien to life with the help of Italian special effects master Carlo Rambaldi, with the music of John Williams hitting all the right notes. Add in some product placement from Reese’s Pieces (let’s not talk about that Atari video game) and a stellar young cast including Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, and Drew Barrymore, and the flick was a hit. In fact, it surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time, until Spielberg’s own Jurassic Park broke the record in 1993. Much of the film feels iconic now, from William’s score to the flying bikes. Critic Roger Ebert, in an essay he wrote in 2002 as a letter to his grandchildren about watching it with them, wrote of that moment: “I remember when I saw the movie at Cannes. Even the audience there, people who had seen thousands of movies, let out a whoop at that moment.” But despite the praise, it’s worth remembering that Columbia Pictures put the film in turnaround, and M&Ms passed on the opportunity to feature their candy because they thought the film would scare children. So, over 40 years since its release, is E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial still worth phoning home about? Or is it better left in the back of the childhood closet?
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