TIME's story ideas usually originate at editorial meetings in New York, or at weekly conferences in its bureaus around the world. These proposals, breaking news aside, tend to be savored for weeks, even months, before coming anywhere close to appearing in print. But, by the very nature of its business, TIME must react as quickly to the unexpected eruption of genius as to the demands of hard news. This can mean that the normal weeks of planning may be telescoped into a few days, with the whole meticulous preparation process taking on the look and feel of a speeded-up movie. Such was the case for this week's major story on Film Maker Steven Spielberg.

It was well known that two new Spielberg movies--E.T. and Poltergeist--were due to be released, but on paper they did not at first look as if they were likely candidates for Hollywood immortality. Says Associate Editor Richard Corliss, who wrote the main story for this week's effort--with contributions from John Skow and Reporter-Researcher Melissa Ludtke Lincoln: "Here were two movies with no stars. Both were small budget. Together they cost much less than Annie. How important could lowbudget, horror or science-fiction films be?" The answer: so important that Corliss delayed a long-scheduled trip to the Cannes Film Festival in order to get started on the story. For two days he wrote, then flew to Cannes for three days, then caught the Concorde back to New York to finish the project. Before Corliss returned to Cannes, he met Spielberg for the first time--after three screenings of E.T.--at a luncheon organized by our editors in the Time-Life Building in Manhattan.

Also attending that luncheon last week was West Coast Show Business Correspondent Martha Smilgis, who last year interviewed Spielberg for TIME'S story on Raiders of the Lost Ark. For this new project, Smilgis had a long afternoon of conversation with Spielberg at his beach house just north of Malibu. Says she: "Steven made me a great lunch. His mother sent over curried chicken, and he supplied salmon, tuna fish, fresh fruit salad and his own specialty, freshly baked pumpkin bread. Food is his hobby." Smilgis' assignments are not always so appealing. As part of covering her beat in Los Angeles, she screens an average of two films a week and is not moved by many of them. But after viewing E.T., she was moved to say: "This is a ten-handkerchief movie."

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