World-renowned Indian director Satyajit Ray claimed that this film plagiarized a script he wrote in 1967 entitled "The Alien." After Ray wrote the script, he sought the help of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in having the script produce in the United States. Clarke introduced Ray to his friend Mike Wilson, who helped promote the film to Columbia Pictures. Columbia signed on to the project and sought to cast Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers in the lead roles. However, a series of events led to the project being canceled. First, when Ray went to copyright his script, he was surprised to find that the script had already been copyrighted by Wilson as a co-written work, the authors being officially credited as "Mike Wilson and Satyajit Ray," in that order. According to Ray, Wilson's only contribution to the script was his suggestion of the word "broad" instead of "chick" at one place in the script. Later, Brando dropped out of the project and, although an attempt was made to bring James Coburn in his place, Ray said he was disillusioned with Hollywood machinations and returned to Calcutta. The project was abandoned at that time and, although Columbia was interested in reviving the project in the 1970s and 1980s, nothing came of it. When "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" was released in 1982, many, including Arthur C. Clarke, saw striking similarities in the film to Ray's earlier script. Ray said that Steven Spielberg's movie "would not have been possible without my script of 'The Alien' being available throughout America in mimeographed copies." Spielberg denied this by saying, "I was a kid in high school when this script was circulating in Hollywood." (Spielberg actually graduated high school in 1965 and released his first film in 1968.)
