ET will soon have a new home to call: the puppet of cinema’s most cult alien goes up for auction on Saturday, 40 years after the release of Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece.
Collectors who have kept their son’s soul should get their hands on the “number one” robot designed for the film, offered for sale by specialist Julien’s Auctions. Estimated between two and three million dollars, the price of this meter-tall mechanical figurine could soar much higher.
With its aluminum structure and its visible cables, the puppet is a small engineering gem, made up of 85 mechanical joints capable of moving the nose, eyes, eyelids, neck, arms… Enough to give full life to this abandoned creature on Earth, whose story of friendship with little Elliott moved the entire world.
Cheered on by a dozen people on set, the alien seemed so real that actress Drew Barrymore, who played “(Elliott’s) little sister in the movie, actually believed that ET was a real living species,” recalls Martin Nolan. , CEO of Julien’s. Auctions.
A jewel by Carlo Rambaldi
At that moment, in a cinema without digital, Steven Spielberg spoke with the special effects specialist Carlo Rambaldi.
The Italian, father of ‘King Kong’ in 1976 and Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ in 1979, had won a third Oscar thanks to ET. The alien’s big blue eyes, which have melted generations with the “ET home phone” line, are inspired by those of his Himalayan cat.
Beyond this puppet, fans will also be able to pick up unpublished sketches used for character design, or even one of the bikes (estimated at $30,000-$50,000) that follows Elliott and ET in the cult scene where they fly to the moon. . .
Scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Beverly Hills and online, the auction brings together some 1,300 legendary items drawn from decades of life in Hollywood.
Enthusiasts and collectors alike will be able to snatch up several of the iconic Marilyn Monroe’s dresses ($40,000-$80,000), the upraised pole with which Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea in “The Ten Commandments” ($40,000-$60,000), or even a model of “Shooting Star,” one of the broomsticks straddling certain characters from the “Harry Potter” saga ($30,000 to $50,000).
Source: BFM TV
