Steven Spielberg’s 1982 “war” against Hollywood that took six years to lose: “Finally worn down”
Having been accustomed to getting his own way since Jaws turned Hollywood upside down and shook all the spare change out of its pockets in 1975, Steven Spielberg had every right to believe that whenever he took on the industry again, he’d win again.
The director only enhanced his reputation with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and by the early 1980s, he was at the very top of the ladder. 1941 aside, he could barely put a foot wrong, but when he tried to put that foot down, it led to a six-year battle that he’d eventually lose.
After spending a mere two years as the highest-grossing release in cinema history, Jaws was dethroned by George Lucas’ Star Wars, not that Spielberg minded too much when he made a small fortune after winning a wager with his plaid-wearing friend. How did the latter respond? By reclaiming his crown and once again helming the top-earning title to ever see the inside of a multiplex.
Unless James Cameron is involved, it’s unthinkable in the modern age for any movie to show the same box office legs as ET the Extra-Terrestrial. After its release in June 1982, it set a record after spending 16 weeks as the number one film in America, and by the time its theatrical run ended the following year, everyone assumed that it would only be a matter of time before the sci-fi adventure landed on VHS.
However, Spielberg had other ideas. Not content with having ET playing on the big screen for over a year, it was re-released in 1985, proving that it could still lure audiences to their local cinema. Despite the inevitability of the ball sack-esque alien making another killing on home video, the director refused to budge.
Every time Universal, MCA Home Entertainment, or any other executive, suit, or organisation came to him, begging and pleading for his family-friendly sci-fi to be rolled out on tape, he’d refuse. In his own words, he’d been fighting “a war” to hold off on ET‘s VHS debut for as long as humanly possible, and while he was shooting Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade in 1988, he finally conceded defeat.
“Steven told me, ‘Since 1982, I’ve been inundated with three questions,'” his spokesman, Marvin Levy, shared. “‘When is ET coming to home video?’ ‘Will there be a sequel?’ And, ‘What is Michael Jackson like?’ Steven was finally worn down by the world.” Gene Giaquinto, the president of the aforementioned MCA, wholeheartedly agreed: “We finally wore Steven Spielberg down,” he beamed.
Six years, four months, and 16 days after its theatrical bow, Spielberg’s resistance wore out, and ET was finally released on video on October 27th, 1982. As you’d expect, its absence had made everyone’s hearts grow fonder, and it shifted over 15 million copies to become one of the biggest-selling VHS tapes of all time.
Today, you’ll be lucky if a movie plays for four weeks in cinemas before it’s made available on-demand or on streaming, so the chances of a six-year war of attrition like the one Spielberg fought for keeping ET out of people’s homes ever happening again could generously be described as zero.
