On June 11, 1982 there were two major releases in United States theaters. One was a sequel to a hit film that had broken box office records just four years earlier, while the other film was an odd science fiction movie featuring a grotesque, robotic main character. The studio that produced the sequel was probably already counting the money it knew its film would certainly bring in. The other studio was probably just hoping that its film would break even, since it had really just produced the movie to keep up a “relationship” with its director.
Most observers assumed that the sequel would easily beat the bizarro alien movie. Since the sequel was Grease 2 and the science fiction picture was E.T., you know that the industry’s expectations were completely wrong.
Aside from the fact that Grease 2 didn’t have the two main stars from Grease, greenlighting the sequel was seen as a no-brainer in Hollywood. As a matter of fact, anybody at Paramount who rejected this film probably would have gotten fired.
E.T., on the other hand, was the riskier film. Sure, it was directed by Steven Spielberg, but this would become the film that cemented his stature in Hollywood. Prior to this he had several hits under his belt, but the failure of E.T. would have sunk his career. While Grease 2’s failure probably caused very little turmoil at Paramount, if the same thing had happened to E.T., heads would have rolled at Universal.
