Will Back To The Future Ever Get Another Sequel?
We'll likely never get another Back to the Future sequel since the franchise's co-writer is adamantly against it.
These days, fans rightfully criticize Disney for its endless Marvel movies and TV shows that seem to exist merely to set up the next Big Thing instead of simply telling us a compelling story. However, it wasn’t always this way: older franchises like Back to the Future made an art out of delivering killer movies that managed to satisfy fans while laying the groundwork for sequels. Considering that Back to the Future Part III left the possibility of future adventures open, fans have spent decades hoping for a sequel, but it looks like that is simply never going to happen.
It’s not hard to see why fans would expect more Back to the Future films after the trilogy of ‘80s films was completed. Even though we saw the famous time-traveling DeLorean get destroyed, Doc Brown and his new family still have a time-traveling train, and the mad inventor could likely build another time-traveling car for Marty. In fact, this was the exact plot of the short-lived Back to the Future television cartoon series, and that program (which premiered one year after the last movie hit theaters) understandably left fans wanting a proper live-action sequel.
Why, then, are we so confident that there will never be another Back to the Future sequel? The information we have comes courtesy of Bob Gale, the co-writer of the original trilogy of beloved films. And in a 2020 interview, he spoke of having an “understanding” with both Amblin and Steven Spielberg that there would never be a sequel without the blessing of Bob Gale and director Robert Zemeckis, and they have no plans of ever giving that blessing.
As much as we would greedily love to get another Back to the Future sequel, we can’t really argue with Bob Gale about why he has done everything in his power to keep such a film from getting made. In the interview, he pointed out that nobody would want a sequel without the original two stars, and both age and health concerns would preclude them from making another sequel. And he also thinks recasting the characters for a sequel would be absurd because fans would negatively compare the two sets of actors and end up hating the new movie all the more.
Interestingly enough, Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox isn’t quite as adamant about never having his character recast as Bob Gale is. In an interview late last year, Fox expressed that he would be interested in a reboot of the film series with the role of Marty McFly being played by a woman. He thought the genderswapping would make for an interesting story, but we’re honestly not sure if Fox is ready to unleash the kind of internet drama bomb on the Back to the Future franchise that Sony dropped on Ghostbusters by creating an all-female reboot.
Because nobody in Hollywood wants to either awaken the internet discourse monster or anger screen legends like Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, it’s fair to say that getting a new Back to the Future sequel into theaters is downright impossible. But in a plot twist as unpredictable as the passions of Marty McFly’s mother, you can experience Back to the Future in a brand new way as early as this month.
That’s because the film’s stage adaptation Back to the Future: The Musical has been dazzling audiences since 2020, and it’s set to make its sneaky Broadway debut on June 30 ahead of the official August 3rd opening night.
That’s right: Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis’ insistence that Back to the Future never gets another sequel or reboot in theaters didn’t preclude the film from getting a musical reboot in theatre. In fact, Gale has been a part of the process from the beginning, expressing interest in creating such a musical way back in 2004. And both Gale and Zemeckis have helped transform the musical into something they are both proud to have their names attached to.
The critically acclaimed Back to the Future musical may be impressing Broadway audiences soon, but Gale and Zemeckis have made it clear that we won’t ever see a sequel film, even one with recast characters. Honestly, we’re glad that this duo is sticking to their creative guns instead of killing their creative legacy with a series of cheap cash-ins. Without these two putting their feet down, we’d likely be on our third franchise reboot, complete with Universal trying to launch a streaming service led by a prequel series focusing on that one mailman who delivers Doc’s letter to Marty.
