Back to the Future’s Ending Was Never Supposed to Set Up a Sequel

The 1980s were packed with movies that made history, becoming classics and major influences in the film industry. Back to the Future is easily one of the most beloved, and for good reason – it’s frequently brought up as a top choice for a possible spinoff in the future. The first movie alone pulled around $380 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 1985. The iconic DeLorean and the whole concept of time travel have inspired countless subsequent productions. But what’s really interesting is that none of this success was planned, let alone meant to turn the movie into a trilogy.

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Back to the Future follows Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a teenager who accidentally travels from 1985 to 1955 in a time-traveling car built by scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). Stuck in the past, Marty accidentally interferes with his parents’ first romantic meet-cute moment and has to then make sure they fall in love through other means, or he risks erasing himself and his siblings from existence. With the help of the younger 1955 version of Doc Brown, Marty scrambles to fix the timeline and get back home before it’s too late. With such a well-wrapped story, making room for a sequel wasn’t exactly easy – and even the film’s director, Robert Zemeckis, talked about this in the 2002 Back to the Future Part II DVD release.

The first movie’s ending is a huge cliffhanger, but funnily enough, it was meant more as a joke than as a setup for another movie. In that scene, Marty finally makes it back to his present, reunites with his girlfriend Jennifer (Claudia Wells), and is about to move on with his life. But then, out of nowhere, Doc Brown shows up with the DeLorean – this time flying and powered by recycled trash. He insists that Marty and Jennifer come with him to the future because something’s wrong with their kids. The car speeds up and vanishes, closing the movie with a bang.

According to Zemeckis, “the flying car at the end was a joke, and it worked as a great joke and a great payoff.” He said that back then, and everyone assumed there was a big master plan to turn the story into a franchise, like George Lucas did with Star Wars – only there wasn’t. “My only hope for Back to the Future ever was that it would make its money back,” Zemeckis admitted.

If you think about it, there’s one detail that proves this true – Jennifer’s recasting. Back to the Future Part II had to recreate that final scene to set up the new plot, but fans could clearly see that Claudia Wells had been replaced by actress Elisabeth Shue.

Obviously, behind-the-scenes it’s easy to figure out that the casting change happened because the original actress couldn’t return for the sequel. But the director pointed out that if they had planned a sequel from the start, he never would’ve put Jennifer in the final scene of the first movie – mainly because Marty and Doc are the real driving force of the story. If Back to the Future had ended with just the two of them in the DeLorean, the writers would’ve had way more freedom to take the story in any direction without needing to explain Jennifer’s involvement. The problem was that when the sequel happened, she ended up sidelined, spending most of the movie asleep. As frustrating as that is from a storytelling perspective, it seems like it was the only option, given the higher-ups’ demands.

“What happens when you make a movie this successful is it becomes a piece of real estate, it becomes a franchise. And the reality comes at you very quickly, which is ‘we’re making a sequel. You can either help us or not, but the sequel is going to be made’,” Zemeckis explained.

Even though a sequel was never the plan, Universal made it clear that Back to the Future Part II was happening no matter what. So rather than let someone else take control of the story, Zemeckis and screenwriter/producer Bob Gale chose to be involved and make sure it was done right.

Making Back to the Future II – The Right Way

With that, Zemeckis and Gale built on the first movie’s final scene, and the sequel took Marty, Doc, and Jennifer to 2015 to stop Marty’s son from messing up the family’s future. But along the way, an older Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) steals the DeLorean and hands his younger self a sports almanac in 1955, creating an alternate timeline where he becomes a ruthless billionaire. To fix things, Marty and Doc have to go back to 1955 yet again to steal the almanac and reset reality.

One of the coolest things about this is how the script ties back to a line from the first movie, when Doc jokingly says, “I’ll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five World Series,” while discussing time travel early on. Interestingly, the idea of placing bets with the results of the past fifty years of games and making a fortune was originally Doc’s throwaway comment, but ended up foreshadowing the entire premise of the sequel and making the trilogy feel even more connected.

Speaking of sequels, Zemeckis recently revealed on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast that Universal executives still approach him about making a Back to the Future 4. Instead, the franchise took a different route, hitting Broadway with a stage musical. Zemeckis says the only way he’d ever return to Back to the Future would be to adapt the musical for the screen. Could that actually happen? While movie-to-musical adaptations can be hit-or-miss, this one was both a critical and commercial success.

At the end of the day, this whole situation just proves that the best movies don’t always come from flawless planning – sometimes, they just happen in the most unexpected ways.

Back to the Future is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.