Great Scott! When the 11th annual TCM Classic Film Festival kicks off this spring, the event will play host to a very special reunion.
It's recently been announced that Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and Lea Thompson will join BACK TO THE FUTURE co-writer/co-producer Bob Gale for the opening of the event. In addition to hosting the trifecta of time-traveling actors, TMC will also screen a 4K remaster of BACK TO THE FUTURE as a way of celebrating the film's 35th anniversary.
As you're all likely to know, Fox starred as Marty McFly throughout the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy, a high school kid who finds himself mixed up in a time-traveling adventure with the help of his eccentric scientist friend, Doc Brown (Lloyd). Marty risks setting off a time-shattering chain reaction when he travels back in time to his parents’ youth and his mother, Lorraine (Thompson), begins to fall for him instead of his father. (via Entertainment Weekly) Upon its 1985 release, BACK TO THE FUTURE was a major success, and served as the launching pad for a monumental franchise. In time, BACK TO THE FUTURE had received two sequels, several video game adaptations, theme park attractions, action figures, and much more!
“Like virtually everyone else of my generation, I saw Back to the Future when it was released in 1985 and within an instant, the story, the characters, the music, and the car, of course, became critical touchstones in my personal cinematic universe,” Ben Mankiewicz, TCM primetime anchor and official host of the TCM Classic Film Festival, said in a statement. “And those actors — Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Christopher Lloyd — forever carved themselves into an ’80s-movie version of Mount Rushmore. Step aside, John McClane; move over, Ferris Bueller; Marty McFly — the brainchild of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale — is the definitive character of the decade.”
Since word of the reunion had reached the public, fans of the franshise are wondering if a BACK TO FUTURE reboot announcement is forthcoming. A re-tooling of the time-traveling classic has been rumored for years, though nothing official has yet to be announced. Is the original film's 35th anniversary the perfect time to reveal plans for a re-imagining of the premise or should Universal let sleeping dogs lie on this one? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
This year's TMC Classic Film Festival will take place April 16-19 in Hollywood, and will feature a “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film” theme.