'BTTF' Week: Disney, incest and Steven Spielberg

Here at At The Movies, we're so excited about Back To The Future's 25th anniversary return to cinemas that, each day this week, we'll bring you some BTTF-related goodies from the movie's co-creator Bob Gale. First up, we discuss Disney's concerns about incest when Gale and director Robert Zemeckis brought the script to the House of Mouse and Steven Spielberg's importance to the project.

Didn't Disney have a problem with the hints of incest between Marty and Lorraine when you pitched it to them?
"Yes, that was Disney. When we were shopping the project and getting everyone saying no, one of the reasons they'd say no is because it's sweet and nice, and at the time they were looking for a more raunchier type of comedy. 'You should take this to Disney'. We heard that 20 times. Finally after drawing zeros everywhere we went with it, Bob and I said, 'What the hell, let's take it to Disney. What have we got to lose?' We submitted it to Disney and go in for a meeting with an executive there who looks at us like we are insane. He said, 'Are you guys nuts? We can't make a movie like this. We're Disney! You've got the kid in the car with his mum. That's incest!'"

How important was Steven Spielberg in getting it made?
"Steven was one of the few people who believed in the script way early on. Steven had read either the first or second draft back in 1981 and he had offered to get involved in it. We actually turned him down on the basis that we had done three pictures with Steven - we had written 1941, Steven executive-produced I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars and none of these movies did very well at the box office."

It takes a lot to say no to Spielberg. What was the concern?
"We were concerned that if we went into business with Steven one more time and the movie didn't do any business we might never work again, because we'd just be seen as two guys that get jobs because of their pal Steven Spielberg. We were completely candid and he totally understood. We just wanted to get it made on our own but we couldn't."

What pushed you on to get the greenlight?
"What happened was Bob Zemeckis went off and made Romancing The Stone, it was a huge hit and everybody and his uncle wanted to be in business with Bob. Bob being the decent and honourable guy that he is said, 'I don't want to be in business with my new fair-weather friends who only want to make Back To The Future because I made a hit, let's go back to the only guy who really believed in it from the beginning'. So we went back to Steven and the timing could not have been better. Steven had made E.T. and set up Amblin at Universal and he was looking for projects to set up in his own company. Back To The Future was the very first of those."

> DSMA Icon Award: 'Back To The Future'

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