Unlike Disney, which can make as many Star Wars movies as it wants after acquiring Lucasfilm for a cool $4 billion in 2012, Universal Pictures can’t churn out Back to the Future sequels. That’s because director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale, a.k.a. the Bobs, retain the rights to the franchise, and will continue to do so until they die. There won’t be a new Back to the Future movie, TV show, or theme park without their permission, and based on an interview Gale did with Collider, they’re not likely to give it.
“We told a complete story with the trilogy. If we went back and made another one, we’d have Michael J. Fox, who will be 60 next year, and he has Parkinson’s Disease. Do we want to see Marty McFly at age 60 with Parkinson’s Disease? Did we want to see him at age 50 with Parkinson’s Disease? I would say, ‘No, you don’t want to see that.’ And you don’t want to see Back to the Future without Michael J. Fox,” Gale explained. It’s been 30 years since the last (and weakest) Back to the Future, and with time comes impossible expectation; even a “good” movie would be considered a let down compared to the greatness of the first two films. We don’t need Biff’s World; we’re already living it.
“All you’re gonna do is beg comparisons to the originals, and you’re not going to match up. And we’ve seen this repeatedly with sequels that go back to the well after many, many years, and they go ‘Ah, well, The Phantom Menace, maybe my life would have been better if I hadn’t seen it.’ There are a lot of extra sequels like that.”
Mesa don’t agree with The Phantom Menace criticism, but mesa also understand what he means. Anyway, that’s the creative reasoning for why Zemeckis and Gale have no interest in Back to the Future 4; there’s also the financial explanation. “We’ve already made a whole lot of money with these movies, and we like them just the way they are,” he said. “And as proud parents, we’re not going to sell our kids into prostitution.”
You don’t need a sports almanac to get rich. You just need to create Back to the Future.
(Via Collider)