Steven Spielberg Didn't Plan For Reese's Pieces In E.T. — Then This Happened

When film-loving foodies look back on Steven Spielberg's seminal "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982), they might think about aliens, friendship, simpler times...or candy. In one now-iconic scene, Elliott (played by Henry Thomas) scatters Reese's Pieces throughout the woods to attract his new intergalactic friend. When the strategy proves successful (E.T. digs the candy), Elliott proceeds to line a trail of Reese's Pieces down his hallway to coax the titular character into his house. Beyond helping comprise an unforgettable film, the scene is a masterclass in subliminal product placement — and a painfully missed opportunity for Mars, Inc. When screenwriter Melissa Mathison wrote the film's initial draft, the candy featured wasn't Reese's Pieces. It was director Spielberg's personal favorite treat, M&Ms.

Per the lore, M&Ms parent company Mars, Inc. was reluctant to give Spielberg and his team the rights to use its candy for the film – an interesting hesitation considering Spielberg's most recent hit at the time "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) won four Oscars and was the highest-grossing film the previous year. Still, despite owning other candy giants like Milky Way and 3 Musketeers, M&Ms are Mars' flagship sweet; the signature M printed on every piece is a reference to "Mars & Murrie's," which put the company on the map. Still, and perhaps most notably, Spielberg created "E.T." under conditions of extreme privacy, refusing to give Mars, Inc. much detail about the content it would be signing onto. 

"When we contacted [Mars] to use M&M's, of course, they wanted to see the script. And there was the catch-22, because Steven didn't want to send the script," producer Kathleen Kennedy recounts to Entertainment Tonight. "I think they had a lot of regret after saying no." Reese's Pieces (owned by The Hershey Company) might have been E.T.'s favorite candy, but back in the early '80s, it was Spielberg's second-favorite.

As the director told the outlet, "I was just told that we weren't given permission to use M&M's, so I said, 'Well, what's my next favorite candy?' Which [has] now become my most favorite candy, because I've been eating it now for 20 years and that's Reeses Pieces. [Hershey] said yes and that became the candy of the hour." The collab was mutually beneficial, even in the early '80s. Simultaneously, the Hershey Company was running into some production hangups of its own.

Reese's Pieces were the first candy to be released by the Hershey Company using the "panning" (hard sugar-coating) method made famous by rival Mars product M&Ms. Reese's Pieces debuted in 1978, but immediately following its (initially successful) launch, the candy's sales saw a dip rather than further continual growth — especially bad news considering Hershey had just embarked on the construction of a new manufacturing facility for its poppable candy. Enter: Universal Studios.

Jack Dowd, then-Director of New Products Development for Hershey, met with officials from Universal Studios. As he recounts in a 1991 oral history interview (via the official Hershey Community Archives), "I came home and informed Earl Spangler (Hershey Chocolate president) and the staff that we were going to spend a million dollars on a movie that I couldn't show them the script for, that was going to employ a little green creature from outer space, and I couldn't show them — at that point it was still confidential — I couldn't show them a picture of that either. I hadn't seen it either. I didn't know what it would look like." Per the agreement, Universal was allowed to use Reese's Pieces in its movie, and Hershey was allowed to feature the E.T. character in its visual product branding. Ultimately, it was a leap of faith that totally paid off.

Reese's Pieces saw an 85% sales increase during the weeks following the film's release (as reported by Far Out Magazine), and "E.T." became the highest-grossing film of 1982, taking home four Oscars. Fast-forward to 2002: Another collaborative ad campaign depicted a bowlful of Reese's Pieces being levitated into the air by the bulbous alien himself. The commercial advertised a promotion for a chance to win a free movie ticket to see 20th-anniversary screenings of "E.T.," tucked inside the candy's wrapper.