An original model of E.T. created for Steven Spielberg’s beloved film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial did not find a buyer after being put up for auction, Sotheby’s auction house in New York said on Thursday.
The piece, a little over 1m tall and which had been estimated to fetch between US$600,000 and US$900,000, comes from the collection of Italian special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi.
The three-time Oscar winner — including one for E.T. — died in 2012 at the age of 86.
Photo: Reuters
“Rambaldi’s beloved E.T. model is an extraordinary piece of film history,” Sotheby’s vice chair Cassandra Hatton told reporters.
“While it did not find a buyer during today’s auction, its significance remains undiminished,” Hatton added.
The model offered for sale is one of three used by Spielberg for his 1982 film.
In a statement issued before the auction, Hatton described the model as embodying “the artistry of an era before CGI [computer-generated imagery] took hold, a nostalgic and iconic piece of Hollywood history as captivating as the stories themselves.”
Sotheby’s said that a separate E.T. sketch made by Rambaldi had sold on Thursday for more than US$53,000, well above its top-end estimate of US$18,000.
In 2022, a metallic automaton representing E.T. and also used during the shooting of the successful film was sold for US$2.56 million at an auction organized by California-based auction house Julien’s.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS