Steven Spielberg has said that ET was inspired by his own parents’ divorce.
Speaking on Thursday (21 April) at an event to mark 40 years since the classic film was released, the director discussed his parents splitting in 1966, while he was in high school.
Spielberg told the audience at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival that thinking about the event had made him question the final scene of his 1977 UFO film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“What if that little creature never went back to the ship?” he said. “What if the creature was part of a foreign-exchange program? What if I turn my story about divorce into a story about children, a family, trying to fill the great need and creating such responsibility?”
Spielberg continued: “A divorce creates great responsibility, especially if you have siblings; we all take care of each other. What if Elliott, or the kid – I …