Ever sit back and realize that some of the best movies we love were actually born from a place of total loneliness? It’s kinda wild. When people ask when was the movie et made, the quick, Google-snippet answer is 1982. But if you really want to know when the soul of the movie came to be, you’ve gotta look a bit further back than the day the cameras started rolling.
Steven Spielberg didn't just wake up one morning and decide to film a puppet eating Reese's Pieces. Honestly, the seeds were planted way back in the 1960s when his parents got divorced. He actually created an imaginary alien friend to cope with the silence in his house. That’s the "when" that matters—the emotional start date.
But okay, let’s get into the nitty-gritty facts you’re actually looking for.
The Timeline of When Was the Movie ET Made
Technically speaking, the gears really started turning in 1980. Spielberg was coming off the high of Raiders of the Lost Ark and wanted something smaller. Something more personal. He met screenwriter Melissa Mathison on the set of Raiders (she was dating Harrison Ford at the time, small world, right?) and they started talking.
By late 1980 and early 1981, they were hammering out the script. Back then, it wasn't even called E.T. It had the working title A Boy's Life because Spielberg was obsessed with keeping the plot a secret from other studios. He was paranoid someone would steal the idea of a "gentle alien."
The Production Calendar
If you want the specific dates for when the movie was physically "made," here is how it went down:
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- Principal Photography: This officially kicked off on September 8, 1981.
- The Length of the Shoot: It only took 61 days. That is remarkably fast for a movie that changed cinema forever.
- Completion: They wrapped things up in December 1981.
Most of the filming happened right in California. They used locations in Northridge and Tujunga for the neighborhood shots, and the massive, misty redwood forest scenes? Those were shot in Crescent City, way up near the Oregon border. It’s funny because even though the movie feels like it spans a lifetime of friendship, the actual time the actors spent on set was barely two months.
Why 1982 Was the Perfect Year
The movie finally hit theaters on June 11, 1982.
Think about the competition that year. You had The Thing, Blade Runner, and Poltergeist (which Spielberg also had his hands in). It was a heavy year for sci-fi, but E.T. was different. It wasn't about a monster trying to eat you; it was about a friend who needed to go home.
The budget was only about $10.5 million. By today's standards, that's basically the catering budget for a Marvel movie. But because it was made with such a tight, focused vision in 1981, it felt more "real" than the CGI spectacles we get now.
The "Night Skies" Connection
There's a weird piece of history most people miss. Before E.T. was E.T., Spielberg was developing a much darker movie called Night Skies. It was basically a horror version with mean aliens. Somewhere during the development in 1980, he realized he didn't want to make a scary movie. He wanted to make a heart-wrenching one. He split the "scary" ideas off into Poltergeist and kept the heart for E.T. ## What Most People Get Wrong About the Creation
People often think the movie was a product of the mid-80s because of the toys and the Atari game.
Actually, the "E.T. craze" didn't peak until 1983. But the movie itself is a pure product of the very early 80s transition period. The technology used to build E.T. was cutting-edge for 1981. Carlo Rambaldi, the guy who designed the creature, used a mix of animatronics and people in suits.
- There were actually four different heads made for E.T.
- One was strictly for facial expressions.
- Another was for the "neck extension" moments.
- They even had a little person, Matthew DeMeritt, who was born without legs, walk in a suit for the scene where E.T. gets drunk on beer.
It’s these weird, tactile details from that 1981 production window that make the movie hold up so well. You can't fake that kind of physical presence with a computer.
Final Thoughts on the 1982 Classic
So, when you think about when was the movie et made, remember it's a two-part answer. The physical filming happened between September and December of 1981, and the world finally saw the magic in June 1982.
It’s a masterclass in efficiency. Sixty-one days of shooting turned into a film that held the box office record for eleven years until Spielberg beat his own record with Jurassic Park.
If you’re a fan or a student of film, the best way to appreciate this is to watch it again with a focus on the lighting. Allen Daviau, the cinematographer, used very low-key, naturalistic lighting that was pretty rare for "family" movies in 1981. It gives the whole thing a moody, suburban feel that makes the alien seem 100% believable.
Check out the 40th-anniversary 4K restoration if you can. It strips away some of the weird digital "fixes" Spielberg tried to do in the early 2000s (like replacing the agents' guns with walkie-talkies) and brings it back to how it looked the day it premiered in '82. Seeing it in its original form is the only way to go.