Melissa Mathison

The script was largely written while on location filming Raiders of the Lost Ark.

During filming breaks, Steven Spielberg dictated the story to screenwriter Melissa Matheson, who was there with her then-boyfriend Harrison Ford.

Yep.

And do you know

He's coming at this from his not only American perspective, but also Catholic perspective.

And like the one credited screenwriter on this, Melissa Matheson, is an American American.

Like they, they have some obviously like firsthand sources.

Like Melissa Matheson was apparently good friends with the Dalai Lama.

And like when they were making this

movie, he was a consultant and like very active in politics.

But it's interesting to watch that growth and to see it track from, you know, being the kid who sticks his tongue out at his brother to being the, you know, leader of a nation and being calm and cool and collected and reasonable and pacifist and like...

It's an interesting movie.

aliens and then there was one one good one right and yeah

yeah yeah so the whole legacy of night skies is itself is fascinating because yeah it it uh it's it's like it got shot in the shoulder but it didn't quite go down like it it really just kind of kept infecting these other projects including gremlins and poltergeist and you know and then even later you you know you have this yeah like you said this treatment that melissa matheson and spielberg cranked out um for et2 nocturnal fears and yeah and we talk about it uh you know with both executives and with you know with some of the actors and stuff you know like i actually one of the one of the most fun things about doing this book was getting to uh tell uh henry thomas the story of what et2 was supposed to be did he really

not know after all he did not

know and he was laughing his ass off he was just like oh my god they just wanted to torture us Um, yeah, like it's, it's, it's really fun.

Yeah, but

I do think that,

yeah, I think that, you know, yeah, and the fact that Melissa Matheson happened to be there.

Yeah.

It's legendary.

Spielberg and Melissa Matheson on the set of Rares of the Lost Ark, they're hanging out late at night, they're talking, they're sharing stories about their childhood.

Spielberg tells her about this idea he has for an alien movie.

Matheson goes off, writes it.

so yeah and and yeah and and obviously you know the the you know if you go on wikipedia and look up night skies you'll you know you'll read like you know yes and elements of it went into gremlins and elements of it went into poltergeist and uh again like nobody i don't think anybody's ever actually bothered to sit down and say okay what Like how, what, where, why? And you know, yeah, so like we talked to Joe Dante, we talked to Chris Whalers, you know, we talked to one of the writers of Poltergeist, you know, like it's like, yeah, like I really, you know, tried to do my due diligence and, you know, get as many people who are still alive um, you know, to, to talk about it.

And obviously, like, we don't have Ron Cobb with us anymore, but I did talk to his widow, Robin Love, and several people who worked with him, and, um, and, and Melissa Matheson is also not with us anymore, um, you know, but again, I, you know, talked to a lot of people about her, and, uh, yeah, and, you know, that they, they're, uh, all the subjects of this book are really fascinating and you know, you'll learn about all of them and yeah.

And you know, but obviously John Sayles and Rick Baker, huge, huge parts of this story and they, they deliver the goods.

Props for getting all those people as someone that does documentaries, it's so hard to find certain people, even like email addresses or getting in contact.

And then, but Night Skies already finished August 5th, 1980.

And then he backs out of Night Skies at the like early September, 1980.

And then by mid October, 1980, Melissa Matheson starts writing E.T., and December 18th and I just

want to point this when I insert it's really fucked up didn't tell Rick Baker the whole

Maybe even deserved that nomination for cinematography that you're kind of alluding to.

It also had a nice screenplay by Melissa Matheson, who is one of the contributors to the script, at least.

And that led to her getting the E.T. opportunity because when Spielberg found out that she had co-written The Black Stallion, he wanted to talk to her about his E.T. idea.

See, The Black Stallion is definitely an elevated children's story.

You know all this stuff.

But again, if you're my dad or the layman reading the book, then I've got an opportunity to introduce you to this guy who's got- skill and talent and wisdom and perseverance, but we maybe don't know him as widely because it doesn't say directed by Walter Murch, you know, and that applies to be it Kathy Kennedy or even people who will forget the writers, the John Milius's, the Melissa Matheson's, you know, if you're living through that period, they're all starring players in this community.

And I wanted to kind of honor that.

And then, you know, that famous house on the beach that Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt had where people would come and hang out and, and they would make meals and people connected there and met people there.

And then Eleanor Coppola, who's married to Francis Coppola, who is a very creditable artist at the very least in her own right, is also at home raising children, sustaining him in that way and having her own kind of demons about, oh, I'm now living the stuff I sort of resented my mother for doing, but I don't know how to escape out of it.

And so on top of that idea that, oh, these guys are looking to create the creative ecosystem, but to them that means getting a warehouse and hanging out with the bros and sharing screenplays without realizing ecosystem is also these women who kind of toil in the shadows supporting them every time they have a struggle.

It felt worthwhile writing about Melissa Matheson and people like that within those ecosystems, but also because it kind of complicates just all of them.

You know, it complicates how you think of someone in a way that is interesting and truthful.

For Spielberg, if you're looking at what is the Spielberg film that captures all of his interests, his themes, his stylistic imprints, all of that.

probably got to be et right yeah i mean that's the one that all comes together so this film came out in 1982 it's pretty much a like stated goal that he wanted to make a disney movie this was again during the time when disney was very much in a rut not making great films not making classics right a little before their 90s renaissance it was written by melissa matheson who Apparently on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Harrison Ford's girlfriend that Spielberg was just talking to about this idea.

And then she decided she would come on.

Again, she was like a screenwriter having one or two things.