The original model that brought E.T. to life in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has been sold at an auction for $2,560,000, CBS News reports.
The animatronic model sold for the eye-watering amount as part of a two-day sale by Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies over the past weekend. Described as the “original mechatronic E.T. character” at the auction, it was on sale alongside 1,300 other movie props including Thor’s hammer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Robert DeNiro’s boxing gloves in Martin Scorsese’s 1980 classic Raging Bull.
Julien’s Auctions said the skeletal model was the item to sell for the highest amount. Featuring 85 mechanical joints, the E.T. model wasn’t the only prop from the film to be sold. One of the bikes used in the final scene of the film sold for $115,000, while a maquette of the character used as a reference sold for $125,000.
Other high-profile movie props sold during the auction include the Nimbus 2000 broomstick from the Harry Potter films, which sold for $128,000, and the staff used to part the Red Sea by Charlton Heston in the 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments at $448,000.
Earlier this year, Drew Barrymore celebrated the 40th anniversary of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial by inviting her co-stars Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, and Robert Macnaughton to her talk show. “Steven Spielberg, he cast me as Gertie when I was just five years old, and that changed my life,” Barrymore shared. During the conversation, she added that she believed E.T. was real when they shot the film. “I really loved him in such a profound way,” she said. “Is it like true that … what would happen? Because I would go and take lunch to him.”
