STEVEN SPIELBERG - SPIELBERG COULDN'T REMAKE CLOSE ENCOUNTERS NOW HE'S A DAD

STEVEN SPIELBERG is glad he made alien invasion classic CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND before he became a father - because the movie would have had a very different ending if he had been a dad at the time.

Spielberg admits he could never have a father turning his back on his family to leave earth with aliens because he could never imagine doing the same thing, now he's a father.

The father of seven says, "Close Encounters was about a man whose insatiable curiosity, more than just curiosity, developed into an obsession and the kind of psychic implantation drew him away from his family and, only looking back once, he walked onto the mother ship.

"That was before I had kids. That was 1977. So I wrote that blithely. Today, I would never have the guy leaving his family to go on the mother ship. I would have the guy doing everything he could to protect his children.