Back to the Future in song
Musical based on sci-fi film
NEW YORK — Director Robert Zemeckis is literally going back into the past for his next project — a stage musical of Back to the Future.
Producers said Thursday night that a show adapted from the sci-fi comedy franchise starring Michael J. Fox will open in London’s West End in 2015, the 30th anniversary of the film. A Broadway run is a possibility if the new musical flies as well as the film’s specially equipped DeLorean.
The new musical will have a book by Zemeckis, Bob Gale and Jamie Lloyd, and new music and lyrics by composer Alan Silvestri and songwriter and record producer Glen Ballard. Lloyd also will direct.
“The production will include illusions, skateboarding and many other surprises that will capture the spirit of the film but freshly interpret it for a new audience,” Lloyd said.
In the 1985 film, Marty McFly becomes a human guinea pig who travels back to his hometown in 1955. Once there, he gets caught up in the soap opera lives of his own teenage parents, including his mom, who develops a crush on her future son.
The film was written by Zemeckis and Gale and had plenty of music, including the Huey Lewis and the News theme tune The Power of Love and Marty McFly’s futuristic rendition of Johnny B. Goode.
The film, which co-starred Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson, was so successful that it spawned two sequels, Back to the Future Part II in 1989 and Back to the Future Part III in 1990.
The new musical will join such recent Gen X screen-tostage remakes as Ghost, Little Shop of Horrors, Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, Big, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Elf.
Oscar-winner Zemeckis directed all Back to the Future films.