The major lesson blockbuster cinema failed to learn from ‘Back to the Future’
As time goes on, the list of movies guaranteed to be safe from a remake, reboot, legacy sequel, reinvention, re-imagination, prequel, or spinoff gets smaller and smaller, but Back to the Future – one of the greatest blockbusters ever made – thankfully remains untouchable.
The problem for any writer who comes up with an idea that ends up giving rise to a massive franchise is that it no longer becomes their baby, with studios snapping up the rights to do whatever they want with the concept that originated in their imagination. As a result, no property with name value or brand recognition is ever allowed to lay dormant without getting a fresh coat of paint, except Back to the Future.
The screenwriters behind such lucrative and long-running properties as Die Hard, The Fast and the Furious, Mission: Impossible, Alien, and Predator were only involved in the first films of those respective sagas, leaving them with no other option but to sit idly by and watch all of them become franchised to within an inch of their lives, a mistake Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale never had any intention of making.
The timeless time-traveling adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown were all massive hits, and the first instalment in particular is one of the most endlessly rewatchable and enduring slices of escapist entertainment that’s ever going to come out of Hollywood, but it goes without saying that Universal must have been left quietly seething at Back to the Future remaining dormant for over 30 years.
If it was any other IP in the industry, then there would have undoubtedly been a remake by now, and if there hadn’t, then there definitely would have been a legacy follow-up that would have tried to rope in Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd for passing-of-the-torch cameo appearances at the very least.
It’s ironic that every major studio in town passed on the screenplay at least once before it ended up at Universal, and as part of their contracts, it was stipulated that both Zemeckis and Gale were required to authorise any further adventures set in the universe they’d created. Fortunately, they’ve both made it abundantly clear that it won’t be happening.
When asked about the potential for a fourth film, remake, or reboot, Zemeckis confirmed that Universal had approached them multiple times about extending the lifespan of the Back to the Future franchise, only for the co-writers to reiterate that the rights will quite literally have to be pried from their cold, dead hands.
“That can’t happen until both Bob and I are dead,” the Academy Award-winning filmmaker confirmed per The Hollywood Reporter. “And then I’m sure they’ll do it, unless there’s a way our estates can stop it. I mean, to me, that’s outrageous, especially since it’s a good movie. It’s like saying, ‘Let’s remake Citizen Kane, who are we going to get to play Kane?’. What folly, what insanity is that? Why would anyone do that?”
If more writers had stuck to their guns and maintained an iron grip on their creations, then maybe audiences wouldn’t constantly be bombarded with recycled or repurposed content that almost always succumbs to the law of diminishing returns. Zemeckis and Gale will need to be six feet under at the very least until anyone floats the idea of breathing new life into Back to the Future, but the sad reality is that it’ll be one of the first topics of conversation in the boardroom when they’ve popped their clogs.
