Universal Won't Let Robert Zemeckis Make A 'Back To The Future The Musical' Movie

I am not anti-sequel. There are plenty of sequels I quite enjoy! There are some that I like more than the original (I’m a Spider-Man 2 guy *puts on cool sunglasses*). However, it is impossible to deny that a majority of sequels are uninspired money grabs. Studios see that people enjoyed a thing and then get working on making a new one even if the creators had zero plans to do that. That being said, I think (almost) any movie could have a sequel if it is thought out enough.

There are certainly films that close the door on their stories pretty definitively. I don’t see how you could make a sequel to Dr. Strangelove. The ending feels pretty definitive. Regardless, there was a time when intended to do just that! He wasn’t going to direct, instead wanting to enlist Terry Gilliam, but he had asked Terry Southern, one of the original writers, to script a sequel and that was the plan until Kubrick passed. The script was never completed, but if the original team was back together, why not give it a shot?

That may feel like a “be careful what you wish for” scenario, which is fair. We have recently seen a director return to the world of their most successful film and set records with how hard it bombed. Just because the creative team is back and invested doesn’t mean you have a surefire hit on your hands. Case in point, Robert Zemeckis has revealed that he is not open to a Back To The Future sequel, which is good! But he would like to direct a movie version of the musical, which I am significantly less excited about.

Zemeckis recently appeared on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast to discuss his latest film and got to talking about one of his biggest hits. More specifically, he talked about what it would take to get back in the DeLorean. “I would like to do Back to the Future: The Musical,” Zemeckis explained to host Josh Horowitz. “Just like [Mel Brooks] did with The Producers. I would love to do that. I think that would be great.” The director then noted that he “floated that out to the folks at Universal, but they don’t get it. So there’s nothing I can do.”

That’s probably for the best. That isn’t necessarily a dig at Zemeckis or the Musical itself. I believe that bringing a musical to the screen is nothing Hollywood is interested in or good at anymore. Dicks: The Musical has been a recent and fantastic outlier among a string of uninspired adaptations. Maybe Zemeckis could do it differently, but it wouldn’t even be promoted like it wasn’t a musical, and given the recent total failure of Joker Folie A Deux, that would kind of make sense.

To Zemeckis’ credit, he doesn’t want to do another sequel to or remake of his classic film. He explains that Universal hounds him regularly asking if there’s anything he can do with it. “You know, we have to say, ‘There are different things that might work.’ Something like that. But to remake the movie or to suggest that there’s a Back to the Future 4, it just isn’t in the cards,” Zemeckis explained. I respect the hell out of that! Zemeckis could easily cash a ridiculous check and put Tom Holland in a bubble vest. Instead, he only wants to do an idea that would be creatively fulfilling to him. I don’t like the idea, but I like that he has it and is sticking to it.