The Back to the Future trilogy works perfectly as it is, but as Hollywood hunts for franchises to revive, it’s become a prime candidate for reappraisal. According to director Robert Zemeckis, producers at Universal have been asking about a potential sequel. In a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Zemeckis joked that the studio makes a request “every six months.”.
“Isn’t there anything we can figure out to do here? Isn’t there anything we can do?” the director recalled Universal executives asking. The idea of a fourth film set in the Back to the Future universe is high on the studio’s list of priorities, and that demand does make some sense. It’s been over 30 years since the last Back to the Future film hit theaters, bringing the rollicking time travel saga to a close. Though the adventures of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) offered a definitive end with Back to the Future Part III, other sci-fi sagas have proven there’s always room for the story to continue.
Many of those continuations, however, have been mediocre, so it feels fortunate that Zemeckis doesn’t seem interested in a legacyquel, especially now that so much time has passed. “To remake the movie or to suggest that there’s a Back to the Future 4, you know, it just isn’t in the cards,” the director said.
Back to the Future 4 may never come to fruition, but that doesn’t mean Zemeckis is totally against returning to the franchise. “I would like to do Back to the Future: The Musical [as a film],” the director said, “just like [Mel] Brooks did with The Producers. I would love to do that. I think that would be great.”
Back to the Future: The Musical is a relatively new production, but it had been in the works for nearly a decade. The show was developed by Bob Hale, Zemeckis’ longtime writing partner, and first premiered at the Manchester Opera House in 2020. Though critical reception has been mixed, particularly for its 2023 Broadway run, it’s still become a commercial hit. Adapting the stage version back onto the screen is a viable strategy; aside from The Producers, recent attempts like the Mean Girls movie musical have been box office successes.
Could Back to the Future be next down the screen-to-stage-to-screen pipeline? There’s certainly interest on Zemeckis’ part, as the filmmaker has already “floated” the idea to Universal. The studio, however, doesn’t seem to “get it” just yet, so Zemeckis said there’s “nothing I can do.”
For now, the time-travel franchise remains dormant, which is probably for the best. Zemeckis made magic with the original trilogy, and you can’t force more magic to spawn out of thin air.
