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The second episode of Josh Gad’s new pop-culture reunion show Reunited Apart is now available on YouTube. The premiere was about The Goonies; this week’s installment focused on another Amblin classic from the 1980s: Back to the Future. Many of the films’ beloved cast is on hand, including Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, and Mary Steenburgen, along with director Robert Zemeckis, producer/writer Bob Gale, composer Alan Silvestri, and theme song singer Huey Lewis. (If Crispin Glover had actually showed up after his decades of frustration with the franchise that would have really been something. Alas, he was a no-show.)
The entire 30-minute show is fun, and it’s always great to see the Back to the Future crew back together. But the real highlight came near the end when Gad asked the inevitable question about a possible Back to the Future Part IV, which never materialized despite the fact that the original trilogy is so beloved that it would have been a surefire blockbuster. Gad asked everyone what they would pitch for Marty and Doc to do in a hypothetical sequel, and Zemeckis basically explained why the movie never happened with his answer:
If I had an idea that I could have pitched to Bob [Gale] with a straight face, we would have made it. I have no answer to that!
Interestingly, that was basically the same answer Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner, and the rest of the creative team gave last week when Gad asked a similar question about a Goonies sequel. They were open to the idea as well, but the right concept never really came together. If they had found one, they would have made it. Barring someone from the future returning to 2020 to bestow that kind of idea upon Zemeckis and Gale, I don’t think we’re going to be getting a new Back to the Future for a very long time.
Watch the Back to the Future reunion on Reunited Apart below: