The E.T. Animatronic Sold At Auction For Over $2.5 Million
When Steven Spielberg's film, "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" first hit theaters in the summer of 1982, everyone's hearts were warmed by the charming friendship between a young boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) and an alien looking for a way home. The heart of the audience's love for the film was E.T. himself. He appeared on screen as a gangly-yet-endearing otherworldly creature, who was down to play dress up and talk phone plans. His persona was the complete opposite of another alien making the theater rounds that same summer, the monster in John Carpenter's "The Thing." Unlike those shape-shifting aliens, E.T. came in peace, but he did have one thing in common with some of the special effects from Carpenter's film: E.T. was also an elaborate, real-life puppet.
There are few things in Hollywood as iconic as the E.T. character, and fans of the film recently had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase the actual mechanical puppet used to film this Spielberg masterpiece. Getting to purchase it though, required quite a bit of cash.
E.T. makes his way to a new home
The E.T. puppet was designed by renowned special effects designer, Carlo Rambaldi. Known for his work in other out-of-this-world films like Ridley Scott's "Alien," and another celestial Steven Spielberg film, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Rambaldi was tasked with bringing the lovable extraterrestrial to life. Recently, in an auction held by Julien's Auctions and Turner Classic Movies, this iconic puppet was put up for sale with bids starting at $500,000. In the listing for this slice of Hollywood history, the puppet is described as "one of the actual, last surviving, authentic animatronic E.T. 's used during the making of the beloved and cherished blockbuster film."
The listing goes on to explain that the puppet has "85 points of articulation," and that Rambaldi, along with 12 other puppeteers, helped man the puppet throughout filming. E.T.'s iconic face is inspired by the faces of three famous men: the physicist Albert Einstein, and the two writers, Carl Sandburg, and Ernest Hemingway; it took three months to build him. The cost to create E.T. was $1.5 million, but at auction, the piece sold for a whopping $2.5 million. According to the listing, 13 bids were placed before the final selling price was locked in, though the item was purchased by an anonymous bidder. Whoever the lucky winner is though, their newfound piece of cinema history is definitely something to phone home about.