There are some pretty flashy previews for a 2026 release of Back to the Future, Part 4, starring Tom Holland and directed by Steven Spielberg.
There are cameos from the original cast, but this is one of those new generation things; I gather that Holland plays Fox’s kid (also named Marty).
As I watch previews, it feels half way between a reboot and a sequel.
I’m sure it will be nostalgic; this feels like marketing aimed right at Gen Xers, who grew up with the original trilogy. It’d be nice if they at least explored some new timelines, although at this point it might be fair to say that the franchise should remain dormant: Being it back in video games, but not on screen.
The reason for my ambivalent title is because I’m actually not sure if this is real. I think this is actually in the works, but part of me wonders if this isn’t some sort of internet invention.
Easy enough to find out by going directly to the studio and actors supposedly involved. This one looks to be fan-created deepfake involving reused music and scenes from other movies. Your opening picture shows Tom Holland’s face over someone else’s body and a much younger Michael. J. Fox. The first post in the second trailer tells you where it was cribbed from.
Robert Zemeckis and Robert Gale (the co-creators of the Back to the Future franchise) have publicly, vehemently stated that there will never be another BttF movie while they are still alive. And, what’s more, Michael J. Fox agrees with them.
Fox and Ralph Macchio are the poster boys of 80’s teen stars that were actually already old enough to be fathers of school kids when their franchise was still current.
've always been happy with Part II, precisely because of the change in tone compared to the two other films. They are all essential, even though some are somewhat better than others.
But they were all to keep the whole trilogy as a closed storyline. Everything that happens in them has a point, and the interconnectedness of them all is not only fun and plays with the concept of time travel, it’s also what makes them work as a complete finite series.
Which is quite an impressive feat when they did not originally intend there to be a sequel at all. All the call backs and references, even down to staging certain shots to match up, were cleverly formulated later. And they learned the lesson from the open-ended ending of part one they included, to make certain there was nothing open-ended by the trilogy’s conclusion.