Back to the Future has taken many different forms since the first film released in 1985, spawning an animated TV series, a theme park ride at Universal Studios, an episodic video game, and, most recently, Back to the Future: The Musical. This latest iteration’s North American tour will take over the Fox Theatre from September 24 to October 6.
To build anticipation for the show’s run, the Fox partnered with Cinema St. Louis for a special screening of Back to the Future at the Hi-Pointe Theatre on Sunday, September 15. The screening was preceded by a conversation with St. Louis native Bob Gale, co-writer of all three Back to the Future films and writer of the musical, moderated by the Fox’s Megan Ketcherside.
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Gale kicked off the conversation by highlighting the first film’s difficult journey to the screen, noting that the screenplay was rejected 42 times before finally being accepted. Gale was told by studio executives that “time travel movies don’t make any money.” But once production got rolling, there were early signs that the film was going to be a hit. When Michael J. Fox was cast, replacing original lead Eric Stoltz, Gale and director Robert Zemeckis noticed that people were flocking to Whittier High School outside of Los Angeles, where they were filming the high school scenes, to catch a glimpse of Fox.
Gale also pointed out a few St. Louis–specific easter eggs in the film series. The stone lions outside of Marty McFly’s neighborhood, Lyon Estates, are a reference to the lion statues atop the Gates of Opportunity in University City, where Gale is from. Additionally, the Hill Valley High School Bulldogs pay homage to the Brittany Junior High Bulldogs, where Gale went to school. Clara Clayton, Doc Brown’s love interest in Back to the Future Part III, is a reference to the city of Clayton.
Alongside behind-the-scenes stories from the film series, Gale gave the audience some insight into how Back to the Future: The Musical came to be.
Gale noted that, over the years, people often asked if he and Zemeckis would ever do a fourth Back to the Future film. The answer was always a firm “no.”
“We told the story we wanted to tell,” Gale says. “When people say that they want a sequel, we realized that what they’re really saying is ‘I want to see something that makes me feel as good as I felt when I first saw Back to the Future.’”
While he and Zemeckis were averse to an additional sequel, it was Leslie Zemeckis who suggested the potential for a musical after seeing The Producers on Broadway. Excited by the prospect of reimagining the story for the stage, Gale set out to write the book for the musical, with Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard taking on the music and lyrics. The show features both original songs and notable songs from the first film, including “The Power of Love,” “Earth Angel,” and “Johnny B. Goode.”
While the films only took about a decade to go from page to screen, Gale notes that the musical took 14 years to become a reality, first opening in Manchester, England, in 2020, before moving to the West End in 2021 and opening on Broadway in 2023.
Although the transition to the stage meant having to reimagine some key parts of the film, including cutting the skateboard chase, the terrorists shooting onstage, and Doc Brown’s dog Einstein, Gale assures audiences that plenty of iconic elements remain—including, of course, the DeLorean time machine.
“One thing we knew we had to keep was the DeLorean,” Gale says. “How we were going to do it, I didn’t know, but we put our best people on it, and they figured out how to do it. When you see it, it’s going to blow you away.”
For more information and to purchase tickets for Back to the Future: The Musical, visit fabulousfox.com.
