E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in the context of "Melissa Mathison"

Steven Allan Spielberg KBE (/ˈspiːlbɜːrɡ/ SPEEL-burg; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema and is the highest-grossing film director of all time. Among other accolades, he has received three Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and three BAFTA Awards, as well as the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995, an honorary knighthood in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2006, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2009, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, and the National Medal of Arts in 2023. According to Forbes, he is the wealthiest celebrity.

Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television, including Night Gallery and Columbo, he directed the television film Duel (1971), which was approved by Barry Diller. He made his theatrical debut with The Sugarland Express (1974), also beginning his decades-long collaboration with composer John Williams, with whom he has worked with for all but five of his theatrical releases. He became a household name with the summer blockbuster Jaws (1975), and continuously directed more acclaimed escapist box-office blockbusters with Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the original Indiana Jones trilogy (1981–1989). He also explored drama in The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987).

John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. Over his seven-decade career, he has composed many of the best known scores in film history. His compositional style blends romanticism, impressionism, and atonal music with complex orchestration. Best known for his collaborations with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, he has received numerous accolades, including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With a total of 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person in the award's history, after Walt Disney. He is also the oldest Academy Award nominee in any category, receiving a nomination at 91 years old.

Williams's early work as a film composer includes None but the Brave (1965), Valley of the Dolls (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Images and The Cowboys (both 1972), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express (1974), composing music for all but five of his feature films. He received five Academy Awards for Best Score/Best Score Adaptation for Fiddler on the Roof (1971); score adaptation of the original music by Jerry Bock), Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Schindler's List (1993). Other memorable collaborations with Spielberg include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the Indiana Jones franchise (1981–2023), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and The Fabelmans (2022). He also scored Superman (1978) and two of its sequels, the first two Home Alone films (1990–1992), and the first three Harry Potter films (2001–2004). Outside of his long-term collaborations with Spielberg and Lucas, Williams has composed the scores for films directed by William Wyler, Clint Eastwood, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, John Badham, George Miller, Oliver Stone, Chris Columbus, Ron Howard, Barry Levinson, John Singleton, Alan Parker, Alfonso Cuarón, and Rob Marshall.

Kathleen Kennedy (born June 5, 1953) is an American film producer who has been president of Lucasfilm since 2012.

In 1981, Kennedy co-founded the production company Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and her eventual husband Frank Marshall. Her first film as a producer was E.T. (1982). A decade later, again with Spielberg, she produced the Jurassic Park franchise, the first two of which became two of the top ten highest-grossing films of the 1990s. In 1992, she and Marshall founded the Kennedy/Marshall Company. In 2012, Kennedy became the president of Lucasfilm after the Walt Disney Company acquired the company.

Mac and Me is a 1988 American science fiction film directed by Stewart Raffill, and co-written with Steve Feke. Starring Christine Ebersole, Jonathan Ward, and Tina Caspary alongside Lauren Stanley and Jade Calegory, it centers on a "Mysterious Alien Creature" (MAC) who escapes from NASA agents and befriends the boy Eric. Together, the two search for Mac's family, from whom he has been separated.

The film performed poorly at the box office and was universally panned by critics, partly due to its similarity to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and its elaborate product placement of McDonald's and Coca-Cola. It was nominated for four Golden Raspberry Awards and won Worst Director and Worst New Star (for Ronald McDonald). However, it received four Youth in Film Awards nominations. Due to its poor reception, Orion Pictures cancelled the planned sequel. While regarded as one of the worst films ever made, it has for that reason become an ironic cult classic, and was featured during the twelfth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Carlo Rambaldi (September 15, 1925 – August 10, 2012) was an Italian special effects and makeup effects artist. He was the winner of three Academy Awards: one Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1977 for the 1976 version of King Kong and two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects in 1980 and 1983 for, respectively, Alien (1979) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He is most famous for his work in those two last mentioned films, that is for the mechanical head-effects for the creature in Alien and the design of the title character of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In 2017, he was inducted into the Visual Effects Society Hall of Fame.

Elliott Taylor is a fictional character in Steven Spielberg's 1982 science fiction film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Created by Spielberg and the film's screenwriter Melissa Mathison and portrayed by then 10-year-old Henry Thomas, Elliott serves as the main human protagonist who, along with his friends and family, helps the titular extraterrestrial return home. Thomas's performance earned widespread acclaim from critics and the public. The character has also appeared in various adaptations of the film, including a novelization and video games, as well as a short film sequel in which Thomas reprised the role.

E.T. is a fictional character and the titular extraterrestrial from Steven Spielberg's 1982 film of the same name. Created by Spielberg and the film's screenwriter Melissa Mathison, E.T. seeks the help of a boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) who, along with his friends and family, find a way to help E.T. return home. Since the film's release, the character has been and continues to be widely assessed as one of the greatest science fiction film characters of all time and is considered an icon of the genre. The character has also appeared in all of its other media, including books, video games, a theme park attraction and a short film sequel.

Dee Wallace (née Bowers; born December 14, 1948), also known as Dee Wallace Stone, is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Mary Taylor in the 1982 blockbuster science-fiction film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Wallace earned further recognition as a scream queen for starring in several horror films, including The Stepford Wives (1975), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), The Howling (1981), Cujo (1983), Critters (1986), The Frighteners (1996), Halloween (2007), The House of the Devil (2009), and The Lords of Salem (2012).