Michael J. Fox Says He'd Like to See a "Girl as Marty" in a "Back to the Future" Remake

Updated on 11/26/2018 at 5:20 AM

When The Hollywood Reporter conducted a poll in 2018 about which classic film audiences most want to see rebooted, "Back to the Future" topped the list, and it seems a remake has been on star Michael J. Fox's mind as well. The actor shared his own ideas for what the reboot should look like in an Oct. 25 interview with Entertainment Tonight. "I actually had this thought that if they did the movie again, they should do it with a girl as Marty," he said. "There's something about it that connects with people on every level. I just feel like it will come around again."

He also spoke about how his feelings about the movie's legacy have changed over the years. "What's most amazing about 'Back to the Future' is that – and it has nothing to do with me — but it has this life," he said. "People don't just like it and remember it, they celebrate it and embrace it and get my face tattooed on their leg, and I mean, it's crazy but in a good way. I love it and I only recently have been able to embrace it in a way. Not that I rejected it before, or wasn't proud of it, but I didn't fully get how much people related to it, how much it meant to them."

However, if the mere thought of seeing new actors take on the roles of Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown and Fox's Marty McFly is enough to send you spiraling all the way back to 1955, you're definitely not alone. Ahead, check out some other stars and significant "Back to the Future" authorities' opinions on a reboot of the 1985 classic.

— Additional reporting by Eden Arielle Gordon

Robert Zemeckis

Cowriter Zemeckis was pretty definitively against the idea of a remake. "Oh, God no," he said in a 2015 interview with The Telegraph, per Vanity Fair, going on to say that his cowriter, Bob Gale, wouldn't be onboard either. "That can't happen until both Bob and I are dead. And then I'm sure they'll do it, unless there's a way our estates can stop it."

Bob Gale

Gale echoed his "Back to the Future" cowriter's sentiments in a 2020 interview with BBC News, pretty much shutting down the idea of a remake for good. "You know, you don't sell your kids into prostitution," he said. "It was the wrong thing to do. We put 'The End' at the end of part three . . . Plus Michael J. Fox isn't in the shape to do a movie, and nobody wants to see Marty McFly having Parkinson's disease, and nobody wants to see another actor playing Marty McFly if it's supposed to be a continuation."

Tom Holland

After he was featured in a viral deepfake take on the movie alongside Robert Downey Jr., Holland was asked about the possibility of starring in a "Back to the Future" reboot in an interview with BBC Radio 1, but he shared that it's not likely to happen.

"I'd be lying if I said there hadn't been conversations in the past about doing some sort of remake, but that film is the most perfect film — or one of the most perfect films, one that could never be made better," he said in the 2020 feature, per Screenrant. "That said, if [Downey Jr.] and I could just shoot that one scene that they remade for fun — he could pay for it cause he's got loads of money — I would do it for my fee and we could remake that scene. I think we owe it to deep fake because they did such a good job. . .I think I'm gonna speak to Robert and see if we can try to recreate something for deepfake."

Evan Rachel Wood

When "Westworld" star Evan Rachel Wood caught wind of the hypothetical reboot back in 2018, she wasted no time in letting her Twitter followers know how she felt about it all. In a since-deleted tweet, per The Playlist, she wrote simply: "No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Nooooooo. NO. NO. NO. F**K. NO. NO. AHHHHHH. NOOOOOOOO. PLEASE! No. No. No. No. No. No. I quit. No. No. No. *rips face off* No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I can keep going. No. No. No. We will march. No. No. AHHHHHH. No faith left in humanity. No. No."