Robert Zemeckis wants to turn Back to the Future: The Musical into a movie

Robert Zemeckis wants to make another Back to the Future … sort of.

While appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz, Zemeckis revealed that if he were to film another Back to the Future, he would want to make Back to the Future: The Musical.

“I would like to do Back to the Future: The Musical,” Zemeckis said. “Just like [Mel] Brooks did The Producers. I would love to do that. I think that would be great.”

After debuting in London’s West End, Back to the Future: The Musical opened on Broadway in August 2023. Zemeckis has brought into the idea of turning the musical into a movie, but the studio isn’t interested.

“I floated that out [the musical movie] to the folks at Universal,” Zemeckis said. “They don’t get it. So, nothing I can do.

Despite their hesitation on a musical, Universal is interested in a reboot or Back to the Future 4. Zemeckis joked that the studio begs him “every six months” for another Back to the Future installment, which he continues to turn down.

“You know, we have to say, ‘there are different things that might work.’ Something like that, you know,” Zemeckis explained. “But to remake the movie or to suggest that there’s a Back to the Future 4, it just isn’t in the cards.”

Back to the Future was directed by Zemeckis on a script he co-wrote with Bob Gale. The film stars Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, a teenager who inadvertently drives a time-traveling DeLorean to 1955, where he must work with Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to return to the present. Considered one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever, Back to the Future was the highest-grossing film of 1985 and spawned two sequels: 1989’s Back to the Future Part II and 1990’s Back to the Future Part III.