ET model sells for $2.6m at massive movie prop auction

Other items on sale included Robert De Niro's Raging Bull boxing gloves and Chris Hemsworth's Thor hammer

The original animatronic model used to bring big-eyed alien ET to life in Steven Spielberg's classic sci-fi film. AFP

The original animatronic model used to bring big-eyed alien ET to life in Steven Spielberg's classic sci-fi film sold this weekend for a whopping $2.6 million, according to auction organisers.

The item was sold as part of a two-day mega-sale put on by Julien's Auctions and Turner Classic Movies that included more than 1,300 props, from Robert DeNiro's Raging Bull boxing gloves to Chris Hemsworth's Thor hammer.

But the highest ticket item was the extra-friendly extraterrestrial, whose glowing finger and childlike innocence melted hearts in 1982, before the age of ubiquitous computer-generated imagery.

With 85 mechanical joints, nearly everything moves on the ET model, from the eyes to the neck, and of course, the pointy finger that was held aloft as the alien informed his new friend Elliott that he wanted to "phone home."

A maquette of ET also sold for $125,000, while one of the bikes used in the film's climatic getaway scene went for $115,000.

Other movie memorabilia sold at the Beverly Hills auction included the staff that Charlton Heston used to part the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments — which went for $448,000 — and Daniel Radcliffe's Nimbus 2000 broomstick from the Harry Potter film series, which fetched $128,000.