October 21st 2015. For any self-respecting cinema fan, this date has a notorious significance. Hurtling forward in time to save the Mcfly family pride, this is the day to which the big screen’s most famous DeLorean is catapulted into the future, amidst a world of hoverboards, flying cars and the eighteenth ‘Jaws’ sequel. Admittedly, the writers were a bit off.
One of the defining films of the eighties – and single-handedly making the science fiction genre cool again – ‘Back to the Future’ pulled in a staggering $380 million at the box office, as well as cementing itself as one of the most successful movies of all time. With this year marking the close of its thirtieth year, former cast, crew and devoted fans alike are refusing to let this occasion go unnoticed. With special trilogy screenings organised across the globe, newly produced documentary ‘Outatime: Restoring the DeLorean’ scheduled to accompany the trilogy’s release on Blu-ray, and the franchise even making the video game leap to PS4 & Xbox One, the real 2015 is celebrating the anniversary of the Michael J. Fox classic in true time-travelling style.
Despite the franchise earning short of a billion dollars, acting lead Fox was apparently less than happy with his performance at the time of release. ‘My agent saw a screening in L.A. and called me in London. He said “I just saw the movie”. I said, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time”. And he said “No, you don’t understand. This is going to be the biggest movie of the summer”. And I came back from London in mid-July and it was just—it was massive’. Having to balance his commitments to US sitcom ‘Family Ties’ with his role as Marty Mcfly, Fox reportedly only managed to bag an average of four hours sleep a night during his several month stint filming the Robert Zemeckis epic. ‘I really, truly thought I was terrible. So many times I was practically unconscious because I was so tired. And so [the work] was just instinctive’.
So with a twenty-first century audience still cradling the characters, actors and story close to their hearts, is there hope for a much-wanted sequel? With ‘Jurassic World’ becoming the third highest-grossing movie on record this year, and ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ expected to take the box office by storm, maybe remaking the genre-defining classic isn’t such a bad idea. However, the film’s director is less than happy with the notion. ‘I mean, to me, that’s outrageous. Especially since it’s a good movie. It’s like saying “Let’s remake Citizen Kane. Who are we going to get to play Kane?” What folly, what insanity is that? Why would anyone do that?’. Perhaps not then. Instead, we’ll have to treasure the three phenomenal pieces of cinema we already have, silently hoping that Medicine marks the anniversary by playing Huey Lewis and the News’ ‘The Power of Love’ at Monopoly Mondays.