Part film history and part investigative chronicle, Stranded on Earth traces Spielberg’s fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrial storytelling from his teenage feature Firelight in the 1960s through the phenomenal success of 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. From there, Evry ventures into the ambitious—and ultimately doomed—development of Night Skies, the dark science-fiction horror film that would take Spielberg’s alien mythology in a terrifying new direction.
Drawing on extensive research and dozens of new interviews with E.T. stars Henry Thomas and Dee Wallace, filmmakers Joe Dante and John Carpenter, special effects legend Rick Baker, screenwriters John Sayles and Bob Gale, and many others, Evry uncovers the behind-the-scenes turmoil, studio politics, abandoned concepts and radical rewrites behind the making, unmaking and unlikely afterlife of Night Skies—and the creative chain reaction that ultimately produced one of the most beloved films in cinema history.
That legacy extended well beyond E.T. The book reveals how ideas and concepts from Spielberg’s abandoned project resurfaced most notably in Poltergeist and Gremlins, leaving a lasting imprint on the explosion of science-fiction, horror and fantasy filmmaking that defined the 1980s and beyond.
Stranded on Earth follows Evry’s 2023 book A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune—An Oral History, continuing his exploration of ambitious science-fiction films and the extraordinary creative circumstances that shaped them.
“For years, Night Skies has been an asterisk in the shadow of that era’s most popular movie,” said Evry. “The story of this unmade project is just as fascinating as how E.T. itself came to be.
My book explores both, and so much more. As with my book on David Lynch’s Dune, the deeper I dug, the bigger—and wilder—the story became.”
The book’s cover and interior illustrations are by celebrated artist and screenwriter Ian Fried (aka DarkMatter), whose screenplay Spectral was adapted into a 2016 feature film by Legendary Pictures. Stranded on Earth was edited by Nick Rodriguez, a writer on Netflix’s Jurassic World: Chaos Theory.
The hardcover first edition of Stranded on Earth will debut in the U.S. and Canada on October 27, 2026, followed by release in the UK and Europe on November 12, 2026. The book will be available through major retailers and independent bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop in the United States, as well as Amazon and Indigo in Canada.
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