We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (27 page)

A year or so earlier, the New Jersey native was working in Manhattan at a dead-end office job he hated when he saw a posting online by Telltale Games. The company was looking for someone to do voice-over work for a
Back to the Future
computer and video game it had in development. LoCascio couldn’t wait to play it once it came out. There had been other game adaptations of
Back to the Future
made for Nintendo in 1989 and 1990, but both fans and the filmmakers considered them to be embarrassing blemishes on the franchise’s legacy. “We had no input whatsoever into the Nintendo games,” Bob Gale says. “The game people were dismissive of us and said we didn’t know anything about games, even though Bob and I had been playing video games since
Space Invaders
. For the second one, my recollection is that the company simply repurposed an existing game by putting some
Back to the Future
iconography in it.” But the Telltale game seemed different altogether. LoCascio was familiar with the company and its quality of work. He made a mental note to keep close tabs on the game’s progress.

Two days later, his cousin called. “Did you hear there’s a
Back to the Future
game coming out? You should do the voice of Marty. You do a fantastic impression.” LoCascio hadn’t even considered that, as it seemed so out of his realm, but his cousin’s comment stuck with him. He visited Telltale’s website, and called the first telephone number he found. “I left a message and didn’t hear anything. Then I called up Rhoda Gravador, who is their financial person. I left her a message: ‘I have to be in this game.
It’s my density.’ It was some crazy fan message that I was certain would never get a response. I got an email back a week or so later: ‘Hey, send us an MP3 of you doing some Marty McFly stuff?’”

LoCascio got the job. Providing the voice for one of his favorite movie characters was a surreal experience, especially since it meant costarring, at least vocally, with Christopher Lloyd, whom Telltale hired to reprise his role as Doc Brown. To LoCascio’s pleasure, his instincts were right. Telltale’s game is incomparable to the Nintendo ones, at least partially because the company went out of its way to ensure that it would be. “I was involved from the very beginning with Telltale,” Bob Gale says. “The team were not only big fans of the trilogy, but actively sought my input. I worked with them to develop the story line in all five parts of their game.” As a testament to its quality and the strength of the fan response to the game, Michael J. Fox agreed to voice Marty’s great-grandfather William in Telltale’s fifth installment.

While
Back to the Future
’s presence has only continued to grow in the United States, its popularity has similarly exploded overseas. In the United Kingdom, Secret Cinema staged a full-scale re-creation of Hill Valley and screened the film in a sold-out run of twenty-one dates in 2014, complete with actors in costume and facades erected in the image of several key locations from the first movie. BacktotheFuture.com has sold more of Marty McFly, Jr.’s rainbow hats from
Part II
to France than to any other country. Michiel Sablerolle, a Dutch collector, owns the taxicab made from a 1972 Citroën DS that John Bell and Michael Scheffe designed for the second film. The car has even been the subject of two short documentaries filmed in France, Holland, and San Francisco. In 2011, Garbarino, a large Argentinian electronics store chain, hired Christopher Lloyd to appear as Doc Brown in a series of television commercials. The response was so strong
that the company paid for a replica DeLorean time machine to travel to each of their stores—a two-month adventure—where thousands of fans greeted it at each stop.

For all of the support worldwide, Japanese interest in the trilogy has always been strongest by a long shot. To date, both sequels are on Japan’s list of top-grossing films, with
Part II
at number thirty-three and
Part III
at number fifty. “I think
Back to the Future Part II
is the most successful of the three in Japan because of the intricacies and complications of the story,” Harry Keramidas says. “Who knows why, exactly? Maybe they just pay more attention; maybe they like details; or maybe they’re more educated about time travel. Maybe they just didn’t have such high expectations.” In between the release of the first and second sequels, a collection of props, costumes, and production art was shipped to the country and put on display in the Hollywood SFX Museum’s
Back to the Future
exhibition, which traveled to four different cities. Every visitor received a 121-page full-color program with information about each item, which has since become highly sought-after by collectors. It is not uncommon to find one going for north of $400 on eBay. As a testament to the enduring impact of the film in Japan, Back to the Future: The Ride is still open in the country, while both American theme park attractions closed in 2007.

The international presence of the film hasn’t been lost on the filmmakers, who remain appreciative of and humbled by the support that still cascades at conventions, via email, and on social media from people all over the world. “So many times over the years that I have been doing these conventions, someone will come up and say, ‘I was watching that film in Kenya being projected on a wall,’ or some other country, and it gave them the idea to be a scientist,” Christopher Lloyd says. “It is amazing that
people who are in the very remote areas of the planet see this film and are touched by it. That is extraordinary.”

“What’s so interesting about this movie is that it truly is a crossover,” Lea Thompson says. “It means something completely different to a seven-year-old and a fourteen-year-old and a twenty-seven-year-old and a forty-year-old. A young person would be like, ‘Oh, my god, I love the car and the hoverboards.’ That’s what they think they love, but there are so many deep themes in it. It’s so poignant, the whole idea of going back and seeing your parents before you were born and what happened to them and how having courage in a single moment can change your life.

“That’s really powerful,” she continues. “And it’s something you need to remember to be a good person every day. That’s why people watch that movie over and over again. You need to remember every day that your actions count. It’s one of those amazing pieces of art where it all kind of came together and worked. We all know most movies aren’t like that. It’s like lightning in a bottle. If it was just hoverboards and a time machine, it wouldn’t have endured, but the ideas of friendship, and how you’d better live your life great or you’re going to be miserable when you’re forty-seven years old, these are universal themes that are interesting and inspiring to people.”

As a testament to the widespread familiarity of the film and the franchise, several advertisers have used
Back to the Future
as a means to sell products, sometimes only tangentially related to the film. In the fall of 2012, General Electric hired Michael J. Fox to provide a voice-over for a television spot called “The Future Is Now,” which included a flying DeLorean time machine. The commercial received a significant amount of attention, airing during highly rated broadcasts of NFL games,
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
,
Saturday Night Live
, and NBC News. However
popular the General Electric ad was, the commercial was only the latest in a number of television advertisements inspired by the film. In 2007, Christopher Lloyd starred in a DirecTV ad for satellite television that used some material from the first film—that clock tower sequence, once again—alongside new footage of the actor, in costume as Doc Brown, seamlessly mixed in.

Four years later, the scientist turned up in another spot that quickly went viral on the Internet, for Nike Mag shoes, inspired by
Back to the Future Part II
. The sneaker company made fifteen hundred limited-edition kicks and sold them at auction to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In addition to celebrating the films, one of the most significant and poignant ways
Future
fans have banded together has been by supporting Michael J. Fox, who, since very shortly after he last appeared on-screen as Marty McFly, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. “He is such a beloved actor, and when he made his illness public in ’98, it devastated fans across the world—myself included,” Stephen Clark says. “But it was brilliant on his part to set up a foundation in his name where fans could get involved and fund-raise on his behalf to help Parkinson’s research.”

To help attract attention to their auction to support Fox’s foundation, Nike shot an elaborate spot designed to make
Future
fans go wild. The commercial shoot was a small reunion for some alumni who worked on the trilogy on both sides of the camera. The clip starred
Saturday Night Live
’s Bill Hader and professional basketball player Kevin Durant, but the uniqueness of the ad came from seeing Christopher Lloyd and Don Fullilove, who played Mayor Goldie Wilson in the first two films, alongside each other again. Frank Marshall directed, in a throwback to his days on the first film’s second unit, and Dean Cundey returned in his old capacity of cinematographer. The promo spot recycled some
of Alan Silvestri’s instantly recognizable score, and yes, there was a time-traveling DeLorean. With the Bobs executive-producing and Huey Lewis and the News’ “Back in Time” over the end credits, the commercial helped the campaign raise more than $5.6 million for the actor’s foundation, and thanks to a matching grant from Google cofounder Sergey Brin, the total amount exceeded $11 million. Not surprisingly, the Nike Mags that were released for the charity auction didn’t actually have power-lacing capabilities, but shock waves were sent throughout the fan community when, in August 2010, the company registered a patent for the technology to make sneakers tighten on their own around one’s foot. Perhaps the future is only just around the corner, after all.

Among those assisting in the effort to find a cure to end Parkinson’s disease are Terry and Oliver Holler, a couple who have traveled to different conventions, benefits, and
Back to the Future
screenings around the world in a DMC-12 outfitted to match the time machine from the film, raising funds for Fox’s foundation. Following a diagnosis of terminal cancer in 2001, Oliver made a bucket list of how to spend his last six months on earth. Topping the list was something he had wanted to do for decades—buy a DeLorean. He had been a big fan of the film since he had seen it in theaters as a kid, and like so many whose curiosity was piqued when they first saw the vehicle disappear into the space-time continuum, he dreamed of owning one. With his wife’s blessing, he purchased a used vehicle and started modifying the car to match the one in the film. To everyone’s relief, the doctor’s diagnosis proved incorrect, and Terry and Oliver still drive the DeLorean around to this day. Their fund-raising method is simple—they attend events and take pictures of interested parties posing with the car. Fans are encouraged, but not required, to make a small donation in exchange for the photo opportunity.
Some dress up as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, re-creating the famous pose of the two looking at their wrists from Drew Struzan’s
Part II
one-sheet. To date, the couple have visited more than four countries and every one of the United States with their vehicle, raising a total of more than $250,000 for Team Fox, a branch of the actor’s foundation.

The Hollers aren’t the only ones who have used
Back to the Future
as a means to bring awareness and funds to Parkinson’s disease. In 2011, Joe Maddalena, president and CEO of Profiles in History, a memorabilia auction company based in Calabasas, had an idea. His company had become the basis of a reality television show on the Syfy cable network,
Hollywood Treasures
, and Maddalena and his producers thought it would be interesting to do an episode where they tracked down
Back to the Future
props and sold them at auction. As an added bonus, it was decided that the funds raised should be given to Team Fox. There were lots of benefits. The episode would attract more attention to the foundation, which might cause a spike in donations. More important, the association with Fox’s organization might make those who had been holding on to props for the past several decades more willing to part with them, and probably also incentivize those interested in bidding to spend more cash on those items, knowing that the money was going to a good cause.

The company contacted Bob Gale, who was ready to part with some of the items he had taken home after production wrapped on each film. There were
USA Today
newspapers telegraphing that Griff’s gang had been jailed, a “Pit Bull,” and lots of Mattel hoverboards. Maddalena asked Gale if he would be willing to donate some of his items to an auction to benefit Team Fox. Bob G couldn’t have said yes any faster if he tried to. With the promise of some props, Profiles in History reached out to
Fox’s nonprofit. They explained the idea, and without hesitation, Team Fox was happy to participate with whatever the company and show needed. At auction, the props did gangbusters. A screen-used
Grays Sports Almanac
, which had been Gale’s, was appraised at $3,000 to $5,000 and ended up fetching $15,000. The two copies of
USA Today
? Two thousand dollars and $3,000. A copy of the
Hill Valley Telegraph
with “Doc Brown Committed” as the headline? Four thousand. In total, Bob Gale’s lot raised $49,500 in total, an impressive number that exceeded the items’ appraised value. But Gale’s items weren’t the only things that were sold at Profiles’ Team Fox auction. The screen-used resizing jacket Marty wore in
Part II
was appraised at $25,000, but sold for three times as much. The crown jewel of the auction, Joe Walser’s DeLorean time machine replica, sold for $95,000.

Given the uniquely mammoth success of the
Back to the Future
trilogy, it is no surprise that Profiles’ Team Fox auction exceeded its projected net gross. Regularly, replica props—not only of DeLorean time machines, but also of the Café 80s Pepsi bottles, blue clock tower flyers, and, yes, hoverboards, along with every other artifact from the films one can think of—pop up on eBay. There are debates among the fan community as to how screen-accurate a particular repro is, and then the inevitable bidding war as the auction’s expiration time nears. There are individuals around the world who have spent many thousands of dollars to collect, and preserve, cardboard standees from the first film’s original VHS release and photocopied production notes sold on websites like ScreenUsed.com, a must-visit page for authentic movie props. Children at heart never grow too old to play with toys, especially conversation pieces evocative of one of the most globally successful film trilogies of all time.