Back to the Future 4 & 9 other sequels that never happened!

On July 3, 1985, the time-travel movie sub genre hit its peak with “Back to the Future” an exceedingly clever, super-funny, and wonderfully feel-good back-and-forward pic hailing from “Romancing the Stone” director Robert Zemeckis. Hard to believe now, but at the time it was a miracle that the movie – which suffered quite a set backs along the way, namely the lack of  studio interest (studios laughed the script off) and later, having to replace it’s male lead – got made in the first place. “Spaceman from Pluto” – as Universal’s chief wanted to call it at the time;  he lost his naming rights due to stupidity – was an odd movie that nobody had much faith in… not until Zemeckis proved his worth with bonafide adventure-comedy “Romancing the Stone” (1984) and Steven Spielberg started batting for the production, attaching himself as an EP. From there, the Deloreans engines were blaring.. Eric Stoltz  (the acclaimed young up-and-comer from “Mask”) was set to play Marty McFly, Melora Hardin (“Big Love”) would be cast as girlfriend Jennifer Parker, and Huey Lewis was brought onboard to help score a Top 40 hit for the film’s soundtrack .

As if the development and pre-production phases, respectively, of “Back to the Future” weren’t difficult enough, there were even more hurdles to face once the movie was in front of the cameras. Shortly after filming began it became clearly that Stoltz wasn’t right for the role of McFly – he was too serious, and not funny enough, say those on the film – and the future “Pulp Fiction” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” star would be fired. Consequently, due to the fact she was much taller than Stoltz’s replacement Michael J.Fox (who, as the story goes, was actually the first choice for the role of Marty but he wasn’t available at the time producers first offered him the role) Hardin was also let go. At the expense of the studio, “Back to the Future” was forced to reset – with new stars Fox and Claudia Wells (as Jennifer).

The first film was hard enough to get up, and sometimes painstakingly hard to keep going, so it goes without saying that the creatives never envisioned anything beyond the one film. The one coming to fruition would be an accomplishment in itself.

The ‘to be continued..’ card at the end of the movie? That was a joke, it wasn’t designed to set-up a sequel. At that stage, there wasn’t one.

Ironically, it would be the studio housing the movie – and not surprisingly, it ultimately went on to become 1985’s no.1 movie – that started quickly pushing Zemeckis and Gale for a sequel.  The script for “Back to the Future Part II” – it itself experiencing major hurdles, especially in terms of casting, with Wells unable to reprise her role as Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue was brought in to replace Wells, whose mother was seriously ill at the time) and Crispin Glover refusing to come back as George McFly (replacing him with Jeffrey Weisman opened up a whole can of legal worms. Google it) – was so ambitious, and so crammed with ideas, that it was ultimately split into two separate sequels. “Back to the Future Part II” and “Back to the Future Part III” , filmed back-to-back, would be released in 1989 and 1990, respectively.  Again, the only reason “Back to the Future Part III” happened was because “Part II” was getting too big; there would only be one sequel today if Gale and Zemeckis had been able to successfully condense everything into one movie.

So, “Back to the Future IV”?

Yes, there were rumblings, and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” writer Ed Solomon might have even submitted a treatment (the story of which was said to involve Doc Brown and a plucky young female scientist -Sarah Michelle Gellar being the favourite for that part – getting caught up into that legendary UFO crash in Roswell) but ultimately, both the studio – and especially Zemeckis and Gale, who were dead against making another movie, especially without Michael J.Fox headlining – scrapped the idea.

Zemeckis and Gale have final word on any sequel, remake, reboot, or spin-off, which is largely why we haven’t seen a fourth film come to fruition.  Yes, that’s right, you can send your Thank You cards to them.

Here are 9 other sequels that, although planned (or in the least, rumoured) at one stage, went the way of “Back to the Future IV : Marty Sits This One Out”.

 

9. “Making the Grade 2 “

Up until the actual release of this 1984 comedy – which flopped big time at the box-office – producers were planning a sequel; in fact, the closing credits of “Making the Grade” even teased the sequel by declaring that Palmer and Eddie will be back in ‘Tourista’.

8. “Airplane III”

Like “Making the Grade”, Paramount Pictures promised us a third film in the spoof comedy series by way of an end-credits mention (during “Airplane II”). Robert Hays, fearing he’d become typecast if he did another, refused to return so the idea was benched.

7. “Forrest Gump 2 :  Gump & Co”

After the success of the original, no surprise that Paramount would gun for a sequel. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you think it would’ve turned out, Winston Groom’s book
“Gump & Co” was never adapted for the big screen. 

6. “Eight”

After the success of ’90s thriller “Se7en” it was a given that the studio would want a follow-up, and they even commissioned a sequel. But when it became clear that nobody from the original 1995 was interested in returning – notably director David Fincher, and stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman – the script (about a psychic working with the police to track down a serial killer) was retooled to be a standalone piece, to be released as “Solace” (starring Colin Farrell and Anthony Hopkins).

5. “Elf 2”

New Line Cinema scored a huge hit when they had Will Ferrell don tights for the family film “Elf” in 2005 – and needless to say, they quickly started thinking ‘franchise’. It was Ferrell was put an end to their plans though by deciding he didn’t want to be the ‘sequel’ guy, not even if it was going to cost him a boat load of money. Said Ferrell, “I remember asking myself: Could I withstand the criticism when it’s bad and they say, ‘He did the sequel for the money’? I decided I wouldn’t be able to. I didn’t want to wander into an area that could erase all the good work I’ve done.”  Despite showing early interest, Ferrell would also ultimately pass on a sequel to another of his hits “Old School”.

4.The Breakfast Club 2 : Ten Years Later 

It was actually “Breakfast Club” writer-director John Hughes – someone very anti-sequel – who originally wanted to do a sequel to his 1985 hit. The original plan was to regroup the cast of the teen comedy – Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall – in 1995 for a ‘reunion’ movie of sorts. At the end of the day, the late Hughes realized “There’s no excuse that could ever put them in the same room ever again. There isn’t anything in their lives after high school relevant to that day” so tossed the idea in the trash.

3. “Good Morning Chicago”

After the success of 1987’s “Good Morning Vietnam”, Touchstone Pictures quickly got thinking about a sequel, one that would ultimately see DJ Adrian Cronouer (Robin Williams) moving to Chicago. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Williams told Moviehole in 2011, “They were trying to write it. It was based around the democratic convention in Chicago. Part of it worked, Part of it didn’t work because it’d be him dealing with the politics of revolt in Chicago at the time… but anyway, they did do [the script] but it didn’t all work. It was also a matter of trying to find someone to back it. It was almost there. It was a great idea! thanks for reminding me! Wow.”

2.”Police Academy 8″

There’s still a chance this could happen, but considering it’s been in development hell for about a decade now I don’t think it’s going anywhere fast. The late Jerry Weintraub (“Ocean’s Eleven”) was onboard to produce a follow-up to the original ’80s comedy series that would’ve – like this year’s “Star Wars : The Force Awakens” – teamed up some of the original law enforcers, like Steve Guttenberg’s Mahoney, with a bunch of younger recruits. Seems they haven’t been able to crack this one.

1. “Spider-Man 4”

Before Sony Pictures decided to reboot the series, they had “Spider-Man” helmer Sam Raimi busy working towards a fourth film in his series. The movie – coming hot on the heels of the awful “Spider-Man 3” – would’ve seen Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man getting caught up with John Malkovich’s The Vulture and Anne Hathaway’s Vulturess . Creative differences between Raimi and Sony, as well as a rushed production schedule, apparently derailed the film. In a 2010 article explaining why the film likely got canned, Vulture said the movie would’ve gone a bit like this : “Peter Parker gets over MJ, finds a new girl, falls in love. But: Peter also discovers her father is actually the Vulture, a naughty green guy with wings to be played by John Malkovich. Peter is torn between the love of his new lady and taking down the Vulture. Being a Spandex tight-ass, he decides to take down the Vulture, and kills him. This patricide goes down poorly with Peter’s new fiancée, and she rejects him. Despondent, Peter decides to abandon his superpowers, and Movie No. 4 ends with Peter Parker throwing away his Spider-Man mask, and audiences wondering if they are watching Superman II.”  As we speak, “Spider-Man” is about to rebooted for the big screen a third time.