The original script for Back to the Future, the 1985 time traveling classic starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, was rejected by studios more than 40 times before Universal Pictures picked it up. Disney deemed it too dirty. Columbia Pictures thought it wasn’t dirty enough.

Without the struggle, we may never have seen one of the most iconic films of 1985, or its beloved sequels, or Back to the Future: The Musical, an award-winning Broadway production set to run at Reynolds Hall for two weeks beginning October 23.

“People have always been saying, ‘Are you guys ever going to do Back to the Future Part IV ?’ We always said no, because we felt like we had told the story that we wanted to tell, and there was really no good place to go with it,” says Bob Gale, who co-created Back to the Future with Robert “Bob” Zemeckis. “But when people would ask that, I realized what they were really saying was, ‘I want to see a movie that makes me feel as good as I felt the first time I saw Back to the Future.”

Gale and Zemeckis decided to revisit the material after Zemeckis’ wife saw a Broadway production of the 1967 black comedy The Producers and suggested the duo adapt Back to the Future for the stage. The co-creators reunited with Alan Silvestri for the project, since he composed the film’s original score, then brought in songwriter Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, Goo Goo Dolls) to collaborate and tapped Tony-winning director John Rando to direct.

In 2020, Back to the Future: The Musical premiered at the Manchester Opera House, then went to London’s West End in 2021. By 2023, it had hit Broadway and clinched an Olivier Award for Best New Musical. “Great Scott,” indeed.

“What’s been extremely gratifying about the process of making the show is that everybody that signed on to work on it were fans, and so they came at it with an attitude of, I love that movie, and I’m not going to be the one to screw it up,” Gale says. “We had people really going not just the extra mile, but the extra 20 miles.”

One of those longtime fans is Don Stephenson, who plays Christopher Lloyd’s quirky mad scientist Doc Brown on the North American tour.

“I love the fact that it’s bringing in new fans, and if you’re an older fan of the movie, you’re certainly going to be happy with everything you see,” says Stephenson. “It lends itself to being a musical, because the emotions are so heightened. I told Bob, ‘Every one of your lines has an exclamation point at the end of it.’”

Working with Gale was an ultimate treat for Stephenson, who says he loved his work even before Back to the Future. They had a lot of time to bond over filmmaking, as Gale was present for rehearsals every single day.

“If you thought the line needed adjustment, he would adjust it, or he would come in with a new page of dialogue,” Stephenson says. “It wasn’t just a carbon copy of, let’s do it the way they did it in London, or let’s do it the way they did it on Broadway. It was fresh, and it was our production.”

Stepping into Lloyd’s shoes was “an interesting needle to thread,” Stephenson says. It was a matter of paying homage to that “childlike wonder” of Lloyd but also infusing a sense of himself into the role. Gale teases the musical will also get more into Doc’s head and give minor characters from the film larger roles, like busboy-turned-mayor Goldie Wilson.

The screenwriter wanted to avoid a “slavish retelling of the movie.” That meant cutting out anything that didn’t work for the stage. Marty McFly’s skateboard escape was removed to avoid actor injury, though there’s still a fun homage to the scene. Doc gets plutonium radiation poisoning instead of being shot by terrorists. Still, favorite scenes like the clocktower climax remain. And of course, there’s no Back to the Future without the DeLorean. “We call it one of the co-stars in the show,” Stephenson jokes.

“I didn’t have any idea how we were going to be able to do it, but we had to have the DeLorean. We had to have it go 88 miles an hour,” Gale says. “People say, ‘Well, does the car fly at the end, Bob?’ And I say, ‘Well, don’t you want to see a car fly?’ These are things we had to figure out.”

Neither Gale or Stephenson could extrapolate on how they managed to get the time-traveling sports car running inside Reynolds Hall. But with the help of an amazing team, they’ve mastered an illusion you’ll just need to see to believe.

Gale says there’s a nest of musical Easter eggs to find, but even if you haven’t seen Back to the Future, you’ll still love it, just as much as he does.

“Every writer’s dream is to write something that affects millions, if not a billion people,” says Gale. “Bob Zemeckis and I have had this conversation on numerous occasions, that when we die, the words Back to the Future will be in the first line of our obituary.”

BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL October 23-November 3, days & times vary, $40-$200. Reynolds Hall, thesmithcenter.com.

Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!