(Welcome Box-Office talesOur chronicle that examines the miracles of the box office, disasters and everything else, as well as what we can learn.))

“What we decided to do was make a human, fun, comical and dramatic story and the idea of ​​time travel was going to be used as a device to tell this story.” These are the words of director Robert Zemeckis who speaks with The signal In 1985 before the release of “Back to the Future”. Four decades deleted, which Zemeckis decided to accomplish with his time travel table seems picturesque in the light of what has become.

There are movies that people love. There are films that persist. And then there are films that would be used as a relic of humanity to prove that we exist if life as we know how to end. Until up there with tastes of “Gone with the wind” and “The Godfather” is “Back to the future, “undoubtedly the biggest time travel film never made. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. To say, Zemeckis and his co-author Bob Gale have more than achieved their objective. They offered humanity with one of the most loved and most loved cinematographic classics of all time.

In the tales of this box office week, we look at “Back to the future” in honor of its 40th anniversary. We are going to explain how the film has become, its very difficult route to the big screen, which happened when it was released in theaters, which happened after its release, how its inheritance has developed over the years and what lessons we can learn from years later. Do we discuss, okay?

The cinema focuses on the teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) which was fell to 1955 in a time machine that the eccentric Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) built from a Delorean. Marty then finds herself in a chain of overwhelming events which covers the risk of fading from existence unless he can only ensure her future parents find themselves together. Meanwhile, the version of Doc Brown’s past must try to repair the machine to help Marty come back … to the future!

Zemeckis and Gale had tried to bring back “in the future” made for some time, but they have been rejected dozens of times. It didn’t help it They had written flops, like “1941” by Steven Spielberg. Anyway, things have changed after Zemeckis was a great success with “Romance the Stone” from 1984. It was then that the duo finally had the chance to get a studio on board.

Previously, Disney had transmitted the “return to the future” because it was “too dirty”, Given the stuff with Marty and her mom. Other studios did not think it was dirty enoughWanting something more like “porky”. Finally, they set up an agreement on Universal Pictures. More specifically, Spielberg came on board as a producer. This would become the first film made in his business, Amblin Entertainment, which was not made by Spielberg personally.

The existence of any film does not hold anything in a minor miracle. The manufacture of a timeless classic like this is downright cosmic. “Back to the future” almost presented a refrigerator as a raising machineRather than the now iconic Déloean. The simple decision to focus on the past rather than the future was essential. They also assembled a perfect casting, but it was not perfect at the start.

The film had Christopher Lloyd (“Taxi”) as Doc Brown, Lea Thompson (“Red Dawn”) as Lorraine McFly, Crispin Glover (“River’s Edge”) as George McFly, Claudia Wells (“Herbie, The Love Bug”) as Jennifer and Relative Newcomome Tom Wilson as Biff. Oh and, originally, Eric Stoltz as a marty.

Rather famous, Stoltz filmed a large part of “Back to the Future” as the example of the film before being replaced by fox. In the end, after having published the images together, Zemeckis knew that something should change. Thus, Universal agreed to redesign the role and re-film a large part of the image, at great cost. As for why Stoltz was dismissed? They needed someone more comical. In addition, there were problems behind the scenes. As Wilson explained in 2011…

“Eric was dismissed a few days before he just would pound his head because in the cafeteria scene … He was driving his heels very much in my collarbones, I really mean pushing me.”

Three are stories almost without account on production that have filled books. The broader point is, so much could have turned badly. So many things have gone wrong. So much additional money has been spent. The fact that “Back to the Future” arrived in good shape was a monumental feat of the cinema in the studio. What happened after that, no one could have predicted.

Universal launched a brilliant marketing campaign for “Back to the Future”, which led a budget of $ 19 million. It was not a little thing at the time. Even thus, between an intriguing trailer, the attractive imagery and the growing attraction of Fox, not to mention “Steven Spielberg presents” on posters and trailers, there was a lot to hang on the public here.

“Back to the future” was released in theaters on the weekend of July 5, 1985. He arrived in the middle of the week to participate in the holidays of July 4 and was very little confronted with a direct competition. The first weekend, he easily exceeded the charts with $ 11.1 million. The new arrivals “The emerald forest” ($ 4.3 million) and The spin-off “Conan the Barbarian” “Red Sonja” ($ 2.2 million) were not up to the time travel film of Zemeckis and Gale.

Having the name of Spielberg attached was appropriate, As he had invented the summer blockbuster only 10 years earlier with “Jaws”. Now he produced them successfully. “Back to the future” held first place on the charts for 11 of his first 12 weeks, losing only briefly against the “holidays” before resuming the crown. He did not fall from the top 10 until December. Such things are unthinkable in the modern era.

All in all, with international brushes (and thanks to its various re -editions), “Back to the future” has raised $ 215.6 million at the national level to go with $ 173.2 million internationally for a large total of $ 388.8 million. A home run by all measure in cinema.

Although Hollywood was not as obsessed with the franchise in the mid -1980s as now, success on this scale means almost always that a suite will occur, if it is logical to make one. Viewers can remember a card “to follow …” in “Back to the future”, but that was not added before the release of VHS. In a 2015 interview with The hundredsGale explained that they really had no idea that a sequel would happen.

“We did not know that there would never be a sequel. As Bob Zemeckis often said:” If we knew that we were going to make a sequel, we would never have had Jennifer in the car with him at the very end of the first film. “Because when the time came to write the second and understand what we were going to do -” what are we going to do with Jennifer? “”

Even if they did not facilitate things for themselves, Zemeckis and Gale returned to write and direct “Back to the future part II” and “Back to the future part III”, which were shot consecutive, published in November 1989 and May 1990, respectively. Both were great, taking $ 332 million and $ 245 million worldwide, with 40 million production budgets each.

While the original “Back to the future” is still widely considered the bestThe trilogy as a whole is considered among the best trilogies ever produced. He also generated nearly a billion dollars at the Box-Office for Universal, putting Zemeckis and Gale on Hollywood list A. However, the influence of this film extends so far beyond the box office, it is difficult to quantify.

In the era of streaming in which we live now, it can be exceptionally difficult to make a stroke of all kinds. There is however this desire to sometimes try to make a culturally omnipresent franchise. Just watch “Rebel Moon” from Netflix by director Zack Snyder. The films were here today, left tomorrow. The merchant could rotten on the reduced prices of Walmart prices.

Trying to buy cultural relevance is a crazy race. As Zemeckis said, they just wanted to “make a human, fun, comical and dramatic story” – to make the best possible film. Everything else? It is almost impossible to control. This “return to the future” has become what has become the result of the tireless effort of Zemeckis, Gale and all those involved. They did not go thinking: “We are going to make a timeless classic that will lead to theme walks.” Madness in this way lies.

Beyond that, there is something to say for restraint. This franchise has never been restarted. Zemeckis and Gale have has made clear that “Back to the Future 4” will never occurAt least not while they live and breathe. Of course, you can make seven films “Jurassic Park”, but the law of the reduction in returns comes into play at one point. As there is, this film is special, and part of this is because it is over.

This is partly why the “Back to the Future” trilogy still resonates today. It is intact by modern greed and Hollywood. The restraint is, in many ways, its own form of success.