There is no doubt that Steven Spielberg has proven himself the master of science fiction movies. His name has become synonymous with the genre that fans would immediately remember him when the discussion is about aliens.
One of his most famous and enduring works is the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind starring Richard Dreyfuss. It was well-received by the audience, grossing over $306 million against a budget of $19 million. Unfortunately, Spielberg was not happy with the movie.
Columbia Pictures Forced Steven Spielberg To Reveal A Movie Secret
In the 2001 DVD Collector’s Edition of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the veteran director admitted that he was forced by Columbia Pictures to rush the final touches to the movie in order to meet the deadline.
“I was trying to get Columbia to let me finish the movie the way I wanted it to be finished, but they needed the film to come out during Christmas. I was hoping to come out the following summer, but they kept insisting, ‘Not only must you make Christmas, because our whole company is at stake, and we’re all counting on this film. You have to make November.’ So I had no choice.”
The 1977 film emerged as a box office hit, earning nine Academy Award nominations and winning Best Cinematography. After the rigorous campaign and press tours, Spielberg decompressed for a while before returning to Columbia Pictures. He convinced them to give him the funds so he could release the director’s cut.
“After the film’s success, I went back to Columbia a year and a half later and said, ‘Now let me finish the film the way I had always intended to. I wanna recut certain scenes, and I want to shoot more sequences.’ And then they said to me, ‘We’ll give you the money if you show the inside of the mothership. Give us something we can hang a campaign on.’”
With no other choice but to agree to the studio’s terms, Spielberg exposed what should have been the very secret of the franchise. Years later, he still regrets the decision.
“And so I compromised and had Richard Dreyfuss walking inside the mothership. I never should have done [that], because that should have always been kept a mystery, the inside of that ship.”
In 1998, he released another director’s cut which included some scenes from the revised film but omitted the part where he exposed the mothership.
Steven Spielberg Wants To See A Real UFO
During his conversation with Interview Magazine, Steven Spielberg further discussed his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While the movie was a product of his creative imagination, it was a well-researched work grounded on scientific facts. Still, he does not mean to prove that aliens exist.
“It’s a movie about the UFO phenomenon, worldwide. It’s not a documentary. It just answers some questions I think a lot of people have been asking, if you believe the Gallup Polls, about, you know, what that thing is at night when you look up into the sky when you’re on a camping trip.”
When asked if he has ever had a “close encounter” with an extraterrestrial being, he replied in the negative, though he wants to see one in the future.
“I haven’t yet, no. I wish I could have. I conceived and directed this movie based on a lot of written material and a lot of want-to-see. I really want there to be more to this than misperceptions of conventional objects and natural phenomena.”
Close Encounters of the Third Kind currently has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.6 score on IMDb. It is available to watch via Apple TV and Prime Video.
