Michael J. Fox on potential Back to the Future reboot: “Do what you want”

The Back to the Future trilogy is beloved by movie fans. The fun, witty films remain some of the best examples of how to do time travel right on the big screen. Even three decades after the original trilogy ended there are still murmurings of Hollywood doing a reboot, but nothing has ever come of it. According to Marty McFly himself, Michael J. Fox, a new installment wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Anyone who wants to make a reboot would have to answer several questions: Would it remake the original movies? Would it be a sequel? We don’t know. A few years back, there were rumors of Spider-Man star Tom Holland playing Marty McFly. “I’d be lying if I said there hadn’t been conversations in the past about doing some sort of remake,” Holland told the BBC.

Ultimately, three years after that interview, we’re still no closer to a reboot. But there is a famous deepfake video of Holland and Robert Downey Jr. as Marty and Doc Brown, to give us an idea of what one might look like:

Michael J. Fox isn’t protective over Back to the Future

Speaking to Variety, Michael J. Fox revealed that he’s not at all protective over his iconic role. “I’m not fanatical,” he said. “Do what you want. It’s your movie. I got paid already.”

That said, he’s not all in on a reboot version, nor does he think original creators Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale would be. “I think Bob and Bob have been really smart about that. I don’t think it needs rebooting because are you going to clarify something? You’re going to find a better way to tell the story? I doubt it.”

Looking back on what could have been, Fox reveals that there were once conversations about Back to the Future IV, but his struggles with Parkinson’s disease made it a moot point. “I’m sure somebody thought about it,” he said. “But I was in the early stages of Parkinson’s at that point, so I don’t know that I would have wanted to take that on. Right after ‘Part Three’ had done well, there might have been conversations about it, but I never got involved in them.”

As for Christopher Lloyd (Dr. Emmett Brown), he’d love to return to the role…with one big caveat. “I think Bob Zemeckis and [producer Steven] Spielberg felt that they told the story in the three episodes. But if somebody has a brilliant idea that would justify a fourth film it might happen,” he said.

Would you like to see Back to the Future make a triumphant return to the big screen? Or should we just stick to rewatching the perfect original trilogy?

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