Robert Zemeckis wants to bring Back To The Future: The Musical to cinemas. Universal? Not so keen.
Currently playing in London’s West End – with a trip to Broadway on the horizon – is the stage musical of the mighty Back To The Future. The original 1985 movie, penned by Bob Gale and directed by Robert Zemeckis (who also co-wrote), has undergone narrative changes for its stage version. It’s no longer plutonium stolen from Libyans, for instance, and that affects the threat to Doc Brown. We won’t go through all the changes beyond that. Just that it’s a 1985 tale adapted to fit into the 2020s, with a bunch of songs at key moments.
Robert Zemeckis is currently on the publicity tour for his new movie, Here, and the topic of the Back To The Future musical did indeed come up. Namely, the idea of him directing a movie version of it. He, in fact, brought this up himself.
He was chatting to the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, and noted that he had no projects on the go at the moment (Roger Rabbit 2 clearly isn’t happening.)
As per World Of Reel, he noted that, “I would like to do Back To The Future”, citing how Mel Brooks was able to get the musical take of The Producers made into a feature film. “I would love to do that, I think it’d be great”, he added. “I floated that out to the folks at Universal. They didn’t get it. So, nothing I can do.”
The great irony here is that Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis have always shot down any idea of a fourth Back To The Future film, although as a continuation of the story. Still, it sounds like they’re the ones now trying to get Universal to make one.
I caught the musical over the summer and quite enjoyed it, although the songs do break key moments in the story, and not to its benefit (in my opinion). Still, technically, it’s incredible, and good fun too.
Here arrives in the UK early next year.
