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Chapter 1

The History of Hill Valley

Back to the Future is without a doubt in my mind the greatest trilogy of films in the history of cinema. There has been no other stand-alone series of three films that have rivaled its blockbuster success. Many people might bring up Star Wars in response to that statement, but there are now nine films in the Skywalker saga alone. Indiana Jones had a really good shot at besting the time travel trilogy, but a fourth installment of the series was released in 2008 and a planned fifth film with Harrison Ford returning as the famous archeologist is in the works as I write this book. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has over two dozen films, as does the James Bond series, which takes them both out of contention. Back to the Future’s only real competition in terms of a true trilogy is The Godfather series by Francis Ford Coppola, but I still give the edge to Back to the Future for two reasons. First, let’s be honest—Back to the Future Part III is way better than The Godfather Part III, and, second, I am writing a book about Back to the Future, so I am a tad biased.

Biases aside, Back to the Future captured the attention of everyone worldwide when it was released in July of 1985. The summer hit became the highest grossing film that year, besting Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rocky IV, A View to a Kill, and the other Christopher Lloyd cult classic, Clue. But how did a germ of an idea writer Bob Gale had while looking through his father’s yearbook turn into one of the most beloved franchises in the history of cinema? Well, it started the same way Back to the Future’s story does—with two friends who go on an incredible and fantastical journey.

Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale first met during their enrollment in the film program at the University of Southern California. Zemeckis was born on May 14, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois, and was enamored with television and using his parents’ eight-millimeter film camera to film birthdays and other family events. When Zemeckis learned he could attend film school from an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Bob Z. (as members of the cast and crew of Back to the Future referred to him) made arrangements to chase his dream of being a Hollywood filmmaker and attended the University of Southern California.

Bob Gale was born in May of 1951 in University City, Missouri. Gale had a fascination with movies and comic books. When Gale was a young teen, he created his own comic book series called The Green Vomit and founded a comic book club in St. Louis. Gale, always interested in being a writer, followed the path of density (or destiny) to USC and met Zemeckis. The two quickly became friends over their love for big Hollywood movies.

The two began working on a script called Bordello of Blood, a film about vampire prostitutes, and thought this would be the first film the two would work on together. Although they didn’t get Bordello made at the time (it later would be made into a TV movie for Tales from the Crypt), they both enjoyed working together. The duo continued to write together and even wrote an episode for a short-lived horror series called Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The show starred Darren McGavin as a newspaper reporter who would investigate mysterious crimes and lasted for only one season. Gale and Zemeckis wrote the episode titled “Chopper,” a fun watch for those who haven’t seen the episode, or the show for that matter.

With an official writing credit to their names, the Bobs would go on to write on another television show called McCloud and then for Get Christie Love! The duo was working well together—so well that NBC approached them both with contracts of $50,000 a year each for seven years to write TV shows for the network. The Bobs took the offer to their new set of entertainment lawyers and agents who suggested they turn down the offer. The Bobs wanted to produce movies, not television, so the two began their journey to Hollywood by visiting with a young director Zemeckis had met during a visit from that director to the USC campus.

Steven Spielberg is perhaps the most well-known film director in history. Spielberg brought to life several films that impressed audiences globally including: JAWS, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, and more. But before any of his major success, Spielberg was a young director trying to get a big break but was almost earmarked by industry experts as someone to watch. Spielberg visited the USC campus to show his film The Sugarland Express. Zemeckis was very impressed with what he saw, and he approached Spielberg after the screening and asked if Steven would view his Student Academy Award–winning film, A Field of Honor. Steven agreed, and the two watched the film together in Steven’s office. In the not-too-distant future, Steven Spielberg would be directing a film the Bobs had written called 1941, a comedy set during World War II. The film was Spielberg’s follow-up to JAWS and Close Encounters, so the film was expected to perform rather well at the box office. However, the film lost money in the domestic box office.

This did not deter Steven from working with Gale and Zemeckis, however. Steven would work with the Bobs as an executive producer of Zemeckis’s films I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars. The two films, both written by Gale and Zemeckis and directed by the latter, weren’t massive hits by any means, but they both had a distinct charm about them. Used Cars made a small amount of money at the box office, but the film got the attention of studio executive Frank Price; Used Cars received the highest score in a test screening that the film executive had ever seen during his time at Columbia Pictures. Price was a Midwesterner like both Gale and Zemeckis and was more than just a guy in a suit by the time he was in charge of Columbia Pictures. Price began his career in 1951 as a story editor and writer for several television shows under the CBS banner. Price would continue this work for nearly a decade until he met Sid Sheinberg (who would later have a pretty big influence on Back to the Future) and became a studio executive. Price worked for Universal TV as the senior vice president until 1978 when he was hired to become the president of Columbia Pictures. During his run with Columbia, Price oversaw a series of critically and commercially successful films. These movies included Kramer vs. Kramer, The Karate Kid, and Ghostbusters. If not for Frank Price, audiences would have known Ghostbusters as Ghostbreakers. Price helped the film studio secure the rights to the name even after his departure from Columbia.

Gale and Zemeckis had always wanted to come up with a compelling time travel story, but they could never figure out a hook for the story. According to Gale in “Tales from the Future: In the Beginning,” a featurette on the Back to the Future Thirtieth Anniversary Edition DVD set, Gale found himself in Missouri visiting his parents during a press tour for Used Cars. Gale and his father both went to the same high school, and Gale uncovered his father’s high school yearbook in his family’s basement. While thumbing through the pages of the decades-old time capsule, Gale learned something he was totally unaware of: his father was the president of his graduating class. Gale compared his father to the president of his own graduating class (class leadership being something that Gale would have nothing to do with) and thought that he and his father would not have been friends if they had been in high school at the same time.

When Gale returned to California, he told Bob Z. the story of his dad’s yearbook, and both of them thought this might be the hook they were searching for to tell their time travel story. Price had told the Bobs to pitch their new ideas for films to him first. The Bobs set up a meeting with Price and pitched a story about a boy going back in time and attending school with his parents. They expanded on the story by adding the boy’s mother would fall in love with him instead of his father. Price loved the idea and inked a deal with the Bobs to write two drafts of Back to the Future.

Gale and Zemeckis worked expeditiously on their new idea and came up with a draft to pitch to Frank Price. The idea was still the same—Marty McFly, a video pirate running a black market operation, with Professor Brown and his chimpanzee, Shemp, travel back to 1952, and his mother, Eileen, falls for him. He must make his parents fall in love with each other at the Springtime in Paris Dance. This was not exactly what happens in the Back to the Future we know and love, but it was close. Even as a die-hard Back to the Future fan, I never knew these details until I read Caseen Gaines’ book We Don’t Need Roads, which I strongly recommend.

Frank still loved the concept but felt like it needed some extra work. The Bobs returned to their office and continued to refine the script. Gale stated that they used the index card method of plotting. In this method, index cards are placed on a bulletin board to help the writers figure out the major story points. Gale gives an example of this method when explaining that the Bobs had an idea for Marty McFly to invent rock ‘n’ roll. Gale states that in order for him to invent rock ‘n’ roll, they must establish that Marty likes and plays rock ‘n’ roll, so they placed two cards on the board; one read “Marty plays rock ‘n’ roll” and was placed before the card that said “Marty invents rock ‘n’ roll.” This was a helpful tool, because it allowed the Bobs to know what points they needed to hit and what exposition was needed in the story. Zemeckis recalls not having any fun while writing Back to the Future and said the process was a lot of “back-breaking work.”

In the early spring of 1981, the Bobs finished their second draft of Back to the Future and took it back to Price. Price liked this version a lot more but wasn’t sure if it was the right teen comedy for the studio to produce at the time. Raunchier teen comedies were big hits with young audiences, and Back to the Future seemed a little too sweet of a love story for the studio to greenlight at the same. The Bobs were not defeated by Columbia passing on their script. The writing team went on to pitch the idea to several film studios but were met with the same sentiment. Each studio asked the two Bobs if Spielberg was involved in the film, and, each time, the Bobs replied that he was not.

This was true at the time, but the Bobs did meet with Spielberg regarding the script. He read the story and felt that is was a very fun, yet unusual story that still kept to traditional themes of family, coming of age, getting your first car, and the dreams and desires you have for your life. Spielberg wanted to be involved, but the Bobs wanted to do this movie without the help of Spielberg. If it was not successful, they would never get another job and just be looked at as Spielberg’s friends who helped them get their projects off the ground. Spielberg understood where Zemeckis and Gale were coming from, and the duo went on to find a studio to produce their future story.

As the rejections continued, Zemeckis told his writing partner he needed to direct. The next decent script he read he would direct. That script was 1984’s Romancing the Stone starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito. Zemeckis worked very hard on making the film a hit because he knew that if Romancing the Stone was financially successful, more doors in Hollywood would open. And that is exactly what happened, Romancing the Stone was critically and financially a massive success, earning over seventy-five million dollars at the domestic box office. All of the sudden, the film studios who thought Back to the Future wasn’t a good idea now thought it was a great idea. The Bobs were able to make their film with virtually anyone they wanted, but they chose to go back to the only person who initially saw their script’s promise—Steven Spielberg. The band was officially back together, and they were ready to create a memorable time travel start that would last for generations.