Back To The Future 4's Rejected Pitches Recalled By Co-Creator

Back to the Future is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and even as new audiences continue to discover the sci-fi classic, Bob Gale continues to assure a fourth movie will never happen. Co-created by Gale and director Robert Zemeckis, the franchise centered on California teenager Marty McFly as he travels through time is still considered one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all-time.

Its critical and commercial success led to two sequels and a variety of other media, including an animated TV show, video games and the Tony-nominated Broadway musical adaptation. However, one thing that has not come to fruition is that of Back to the Future 4, with Gale frequently refusing to make a new installment, while Zemeckis has stayed busy in the decades since the trilogy ended with everything from his Oscar-winning work on Forrest Gump to his divisive adaptation of Here.

Now, in honor of the movie’s 40th anniversary re-release, ScreenRant interviewed Bob Gale to discuss Back to the Future. During the course of the conversation, Gale was asked about the pitches for a fourth movie he and Zemeckis have received over the years, be they from fans or studio executives.

Laughing as he agreed that an idea pitched by an executive is “an oxymoron“, and therefore can be “taken out of the equation“, the co-creator did confirm that there “have been things that people have said that were interesting“. However, he quickly expressed that one of the key hurdles in making any of them happen is time:

The trouble is that when you go back to something many years later, first of all, I’d say, “Do you want to see Back to the Future without Michael J. Fox?” No, nobody wants to see that. So boom, it’s off the table. Then they said, “Well, now we’ve got AI, we can make” — “No, let’s not do that either.”

As such, he restated that he and Zemeckis agree they are “going to be the guys that don’t mess with success” by moving forward with Back to the Future 4. Gale went on to point out the Star Wars franchise as an example of one in which the brand was ultimately brought down by bringing it back for more stories:

What do people think about Star Wars now? It’s not what it was. And there are a lot of franchises that are like that, because sometimes, you shouldn’t go back to the well.

Gale Has A Few Ideas Why Back To The Future Continues To Be Relevant

ScreenRant: So my first question for you is, obviously we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary. It is not every day, or every project, that gets celebrated like this so long after it happens. Why do you think it’s stood the test of time?

Bob Gale: I think that people say Back to the Future, which is a time travel movie, is really a movie about a family. And I think that’s the heart of it, that every single person on Earth, at some point, asks the question, “How did I get here? What did my parents do on their first date? What was that all about?” So, that’s something that everybody can identify with, and no matter what culture you grow up in, when you’re born, those are some of the basic human things that people always respond to. So, I think that’s the core of it.

ScreenRant: I know Michael J. Fox feels it’s more relevant than ever, because we live in a bully culture, and he sees his character standing up to bullies. He sees the movie as standing up to bullies. What is your response to that, and what advice do you give people now who have to stand up to the bullies?

Bob Gale: Look, there’s always been bullies. That’s why we created Biff, because when I was a kid, there was a bully in school, more than one, probably. So I don’t think that that’s anything new. And unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going away. So yeah, there are so many things in Back to the Future that make it relevant. And let’s pick a few more.

ScreenRant: You’ve returned to the franchise in various forms over the years. Do you feel like you pick up anything new every time that you revisit it? Or is there something that has been unveiled to you now that you wouldn’t have thought of 40 years ago?

Bob Gale: Well, what has been interesting about doing Back to the Future: The Musical is that it forced us to look at the ’80s as a period. We made it in the ’80s, and it was contemporary. I remember seeing the scene with everybody dressed in ’80s costumes, and I said, “My God, did we look that terrible then? Yeah, we did.” [Chuckles] Actually, we turned it up a little bit. So it is interesting looking back at the ’80s, and what’s really interesting, here we are 40 years later, and so it’s longer to look back at the ’80s than it was in the ’80s for us to look back at the ’50s.