ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - If you are a fan of the 'Back To The Future' movies, you might like what is coming to the Fabulous Fox Theatre beginning Tuesday night.
Beginning Tuesday Sept. 24 and until Sunday, Oct. 6, fans of the iconic 'Back To The Future' franchise can head on over to The Fabulous Fox theatre to catch 'Back To The Future' The Musical, which is based of course off of the movies.
"There were things that we just looked at and said 'ok, there are things you can do on stage' and we want to show off what you can do on stage to it's best ability and try to not do stuff on stage where people say 'oh it's a mediocre version to what they did in the movies,'" said Bob Gale, the creator of 'Back To The Future' franchise on Total Information A.M. Tuesday. "We didn't want it to be a slavish adaptation."
The musical making it's way to Fabulous Fox Theatre is special for Gale, who grew up right here in St. Louis.
"I went to all public schools in University City, my dad went to University City High School and that's kind of the reason why 'Back To the Future' exists," said Gale.
Gale talked the origins of how he created the 'Back To Future' franchise, stemming from discovering his dad's old high school yearbook and discovering that his dad was the president of his high school graduating class.
"I did not like the president of my graduating class. and I wondered if my dad was the kind of guy that the president of my class was and if I had gone to high school with my dad, would we have been friends?," said Gale. "And that's when the prover vial bolt of lightning hit me in the head and said 'there's a good idea for a movie there: kid goes back in time and go to high school with his dad' and that's how it all started. So it's all because of St. Louis."
Gale told 'Total Information A.M.' host Debbie Monterrey that while his partner Robert Zemeckis and the head of Columbia Pictures Frank Price understood the pitch for the movie immediately, ultimately, the script got denied 42 times by a lot studios including Disney due to the movie studios beliefs at the time that time travel movies didn't make money.
"It took Zemeckis to make a hit movie called 'Romancing The Stone' that made everyone want to be in business with him," said Gale. "We brought the project to our friend Stephen Spielberg who just started (at the time) Amblin Entertainment and finally we got the movie to pre-production in the summer of 1984."
Looking back at the original film nearly 40 years later, Gale says having the perfect cast led by Michael J. Fox for that movie helped made it succeed when it released to theaters in 1985.
"If we hadn't had Michael J. Fox in the movie, I probably wouldn't be sitting here and having this conversation with you and there would not be a 'Back To the Future' The Musical." said Gale.
Gale says there are some differences with the musical compared to the movies, such as the musical can't really recreate the terrorist car chase or do the skateboard chase scenes.
"You can't do the terrorist car chase on the stage, but drama is Doc is incapacitated and he is dying, so we gave him radiation poisoning from the plutonium and it works dramatically perfectly well," said Gale. "It only requires Marty and Doc being on stage and it works that way."
"We knew we couldn't do the skateboard chase because it is too dangerous. You can't risk your actor breaking his ankle doing skateboard stunts even if you could find one that could act and do stunts. So I cut that out and we have a different kind of chase that does dramatically and does the same function."
For tickets, you can head to on over to the Fabulous Fox Theatre website to purchase if you are interested in watching 'Back To The Future: The Musical'.
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