Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg

“It had been such a beautiful morning,” Spielberg told Ebert in 1977. What he did discover, though, was that Close Encounters‘ secrecy had much to do with a malfunctioning shark. Columbia Pictures told critic Roger Ebert that whatever they were filming inside the hangars required “tons of construction steel,” yards of plastic sheeting, acres of canvas and “enough concrete to build a highway from Mobile to the next town down the road.”Įbert’s concerted attempts to get an inkling of what Spielberg and his crew were building in Alabama were politely rebuffed. Close Encounters‘ final 45 minutes were being shot in two colossal, disused aircraft hangars in Mobile, which had been retro-fitted by Spielberg’s crew to create the largest sound stage in the world – four times larger than the 007 stage in Pinewood used to shoot the ending of You Only Live Twice. The intense security surrounding the film’s set only heightened speculation.

“There’s a strict rule that absolutely no visitors are allowed on the set. “You see, the special effects for this movie are, ah – quite spectacular,” the publicist said. The reply from the film’s publicists was rather cagey. Intent on finding out more about the movie for a Starlogfeature, writer Kirsten Russell began chasing Columbia Pictures for access. As a result, the budget had risen to $12 million was “still climbing,” according to the magazine’s sources. Those effects weren’t going to be cheap, either the brief news story added that, of Close Encounters‘ original budget of $10 million, half of that sum had already been spent on its VFX sequences. Read more: How Steven Spielberg’s Night Skies Became E.T.īy November that year, a few more morsels of information had emerged the second issue of Starlog reported that Douglas Trumbull ( 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running) was overseeing the film’s visual effects. Allen Hynek – and the word that its shoot was set to take place in Los Angeles, Wyoming, and Alabama. In the summer of 1976, all that the Hollywood Reporter‘s writers could dig up was its title – taken from a book by UFO expert Dr.

Much to the frustration of newspaper and magazine editors everywhere, Spielberg was intent on drawing a heavy veil over his new movie. What was it about? What might it look like? Could it possibly top Jaws, then the most profitable movie of all time? When news emerged, in the wake of his shark-infested 1975 blockbuster, that Spielberg was making a science fiction film with Columbia Pictures, the Hollywood movie press understandably wanted to know more. Such was the case with Close Encounters Of The Third Kind – director Steven Spielberg’s much-anticipated follow-up to Jaws.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg