Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (also known simply as E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed E.T., who is stranded on Earth. Along with his friends and family, Elliott must find a way to help E.T. return home while avoiding the government. The film stars Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, and Drew Barrymore. The concept was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from an unrealized project Night Skies. In less than two months, Mathison wrote the 
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  There were allegations that the film was plagiarized from a 1967 script, The Alien, by Indian director Satyajit Ray. He stated, "E.T. would not have been possible without my script of The Alien being available throughout the United States in mimeographed copies." Spielberg denied this claim, stating, "I was a kid in high school when his script was circulating in Hollywood." Spielberg's friend, director Martin Scorsese, has also alleged the film was influenced by Ray's script. Star Weekend Magazine disputes Spielberg's claim, pointing out that he had graduated from high school in 1965 and began his career as a director in Hollywood in 1969. The Times of India noted that E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) had "remarkable parallels" 
Title: Melissa Mathison
Content:  Mathison wrote the screenplay for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) in collaboration with Steven Spielberg. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The script was based on a story, written by John Sayles, that Spielberg provided to Mathison during the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Spielberg attributes the line "E.T. phone home" to Mathison. She collaborated again with Spielberg for The BFG (2016), her final film, which was dedicated in her memory. She also had film credits for The Escape Artist (1982) and The Indian in the Cupboard (1995).
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  had planned with John Sayles called Night Skies in which malevolent aliens terrorize a family. Filming Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia caused a sense of loneliness in Spielberg, far from his family and friends, and made memories of his childhood creation resurface. He told screenwriter Melissa Mathison about Night Skies, and developed a subplot from the failed project, in which Buddy, the only friendly alien, befriends an autistic child. His abandonment on Earth in the script's final scene inspired the E.T. concept. She wrote a first draft titled E.T. and Me in eight weeks, which he considered perfect. The script went through two more 
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  The Alien. These parallels include the physical nature of the alien. In his screenplay, which Ray wrote entirely in English, he described the alien as "a cross between a gnome and a famished refugee child: large head, spindly limbs, a lean torso. Is it male or female or neuter? We don't know. What its form basically conveys is a kind of ethereal innocence, and it is difficult to associate either great evil or great power with it; yet a feeling of eeriness is there because of the resemblance to a sickly human child." Ray first found out about E.T. from a friend, British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who was familiar with The Alien and believed it was plagiarized by E.T. 
Title: William Kotzwinkle
Content: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (based on Melissa Mathison's screenplay) ; E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet (1985) 
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  which deleted an "Eddie Haskell"–esque friend of Elliott. The chase sequence was also created, and he also suggested having the scene where E.T. got drunk. In early summer 1981, while Raiders of the Lost Ark was being promoted, Columbia Pictures met with Spielberg to discuss the script, after having to develop Night Skies with the director as the intended sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, the head of Columbia Pictures' marketing and research development, Marvin Atonowsky, concluded that it had a limited commercial potential, believing that it would appeal to mostly young kids. The President of Columbia's worldwide productions, John Veitch, also felt 
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (album)
Content:  Rod Temperton, who had written several songs featured on Off the Wall and Thriller, wrote the music for "Someone in the Dark". Freddy DeMann and Ron Weisner, former managers of The Jacksons, served as the production coordinators for the album. Bruce Swedien engineered E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a task he had performed on Off the Wall and Thriller and would go on to perform for the next albums of Jackson. Dick Zimmerman photographed Jackson for the Thriller album cover, before again capturing the singer for the accompanying poster to the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial album. Once the recording and engineering aspects of production had been completed, MCA Records (the distributor of the album) pressed more than a million copies of the audiobook. In 1982, a journalist for Billboard wrote that it was one of the "most ambitious" projects that MCA Records had taken on to date.
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  draft of the script, titled E.T. and Me, which went through two rewrites. The project was rejected by Columbia Pictures, who doubted its commercial potential. Universal Pictures eventually purchased the script for $1 million. Filming took place from September to December 1981 on a budget of $10.5 million. Unlike most films, it was shot in rough chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast. The animatronics of E.T. were designed by Carlo Rambaldi. E.T. premiered as the closing film of the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. It was released in the United States on June 11, 1982 and was an immediate blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time—a record it 
Title: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Content:  the script was not good or scary enough to draw enough crowd. On the advice of Atonowsky and Veitch, Columbia Pictures CEO Frank Price passed on the project, thus putting it in a turnaround, so Spielberg approached the more receptive Sid Sheinberg, president of MCA, the then-parent company of Universal Studios. Spielberg told Sheinberg to acquire the E.T. script from Columbia Pictures, which he did for $1million and struck a deal with Price in which Columbia would retain 5% of the film's net profits. Veitch later recalled that "I think [in 1982] we made more on that picture than we did on any of our films."

Question: Who was the screenwriter for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Answer: Melissa Mathison.
Melissa Marie Mathison.