How the UFO Horror Steven Spielberg Never Made Ultimately Inspired ET

After Jaws announced Steven Spielberg as one of Hollywood’s biggest names in 1975, he turned his attention to science fiction and delivered a true classic of the genre with Close Encounters of the Third Kind just two years later . It’s no surprise that he then considered more spaceship action and now, in 2024, he’s going back to the well with a new UFO movie.

But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Spielberg was hard at work on a very different sci-fi horror film. This would have seen him marry the darkness of Jaws with the wonder of Close Encounters. The project he conceived became known as Night Skies, but it never saw the light of day.

Spielberg began work on what he originally wanted to call Watch the Skies – rights issues thwarted that title – when Columbia Pictures began interviewing him about a potential Close Encounters sequel. Stung by the way Universal had made Jaws 2 without him in 1978, he began work on a story inspired by the 1955 affair known as the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter.

In this case, police were called to a farm in Kentucky where residents claimed they had been involved in a shootout with aliens. Media coverage of the event gave rise to the “little green men” trope. The cops found no evidence of the existence of the “Hopkinsville Goblins” and most skeptics eventually agreed that the “aliens” were actually great horned owls. But it’s not fun.

Learn more: Steven Spielberg has his own theory about these UFOs: “What if it was us, 500,000 years in the future? » (IndieWire)

Spielberg took this story and modernized it, writing about a group of hostile alien scientists who landed on Earth and attempted to communicate with livestock before ultimately attacking the family farm. There was no story or character crossover with Close Encounters.

The director wanted Lawrence Kasdan, with whom he would later work on Raiders of the Lost Ark, to translate his treatment into a screenplay. However, Kasdan was busy trying to tackle Empire Strikes Back at the time, so Piranha screenwriter John Sayles wrote a draft.

Spielberg was under contract with Universal and couldn’t direct himself, so he pitched Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper’s name to the studio. He also brought in makeup maestro Rick Baker – best known today for the incredible werewolf transformation in An American Werewolf in London – to work on the alien designs.

Learn more: How the two-minute “An American Werewolf in London” still inspires shock, awe and howls 40 years later (Yahoo Entertainment)

The effects genius said it wouldn’t be an easy task, saying the creatures alone would cost the production $3 million (£2.4 million). When Night Skies finally collapsed – more on that shortly – Baker was furious and the rift between him and Spielberg was anything but amicable, especially since Baker had already shelled out around $700,000 (£550,000) for the movie.

In 2014, after leaving the row, Baker even tweeted out some of his original creations, so we could see how scary the alien prototypes from Night Skies really were. We’re a long way from ET when it comes to these guys.

Except we weren’t very far from ET at all. By the time he set out to make Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg had a lot of doubts about Night Skies. He was unsure of the darkness of the material and longed for the calmer, more thoughtful storytelling of Close Encounters. One day, he read the script to Raiders star Harrison Ford’s girlfriend, screenwriter Melissa Mathison.

She shared many of Spielberg’s concerns, but liked one aspect of the story, in which a kind member of the alien group bonds with an autistic child. Mathison and Spielberg took this germ of an idea and began writing the film that a few years later would win the hearts of the world as ET the Extra-Terrestrial.

Learn more: 10 Extraordinary Facts About ET the Extraterrestrial (BANG Showbiz)

Columbia was satiated by the release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition and Universal struck a deal for Night Skies – then retooled as ET – in which Columbia would get 5% of the film’s net profit. Considering ET went on to earn $793 million (£623 million) at the worldwide box office, it ended up being a pretty sweet deal.

As for the darker aspects of the story, Spielberg would hand them over to MGM and replace the aliens with ghosts. These parts of Night Skies were eventually infused into 1982’s Poltergeist, which also boasted Spielberg’s choice as Night Skies director in Tobe Hooper.

Learn more: Steven Spielberg points out a big mistake in “ET” that he really regrets (HuffPost)

There are even elements of Night Skies in the 1984 Spielberg-produced film Gremlins. It contains the idea of ​​a member of an otherwise hostile species being friendly, as well as a cinema marquee advertising a film called Watch the Skies. It’s finally come full circle for this one.

Now, over 40 years later, we have access to a whole new slice of Spielbergian science fiction. Whether it’s as dark as Night Skies or as sentimental as Close Encounters, only time will tell. We’re just happy that one of cinema’s greatest directors is looking to the sky again.

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial is streaming NOW with a Sky Cinema subscription.