New Book Reveals How Steven Spielberg’s Lost UFO Film Evolved Into E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Steven Spielberg’s long fascination with aliens and UFOs is the focus of a new book, Stranded on Earth: How Night Skies Became E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, written by Max Evry. The book traces Spielberg’s extraterrestrial storytelling from his early 1960s short Firelight to the breakthrough success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, a film that helped redefine public imagination around UFOs and alien contact. It then follows the development of Night Skies, a darker sci-fi horror project Spielberg initially planned after Close Encounters, and shows how that unmade film gradually evolved into the family classic E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
According to the book’s description, Night Skies has long remained a footnote in Spielberg history, but its abandoned concept and creative evolution are central to understanding how E.T. came together. Evry’s research combines film history with investigative reporting, drawing on new interviews with Spielberg collaborators and extensive archival digging. The result, as described in the source text, is a behind-the-scenes account of the creative chaos, studio pressure, discarded ideas, and major rewrites that helped transform a frightening alien story into one of the most beloved films ever made.
The book also explores how pieces of Night Skies were repurposed into other Spielberg-era projects. Some of its ideas reportedly carried over into Poltergeist, which was released in the same year as E.T. and filmed in the same neighborhood, while other elements influenced Gremlins, which mixed one friendly creature with a group of dangerous ones. Together, these connections show how Spielberg’s unrealized alien horror film left a wider imprint on 1980s genre cinema than its unfinished status might suggest.
Evry, who also wrote A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune, presents the new book as both a deep dive into a lost project and a broader study of Spielberg at a creative peak. The trailer for the book has also been released ahead of publication, adding to interest in the title among film fans and collectors of Hollywood history.
Stranded on Earth is scheduled to be published in October by 1984 Publishing and will be available through bookstores and online retailers. For readers interested in Spielberg’s career, the making of E.T., or the evolution of major studio films from discarded concept to finished classic, the book offers a detailed look at one of Hollywood’s most famous transformations.
