Is Back to the Future 4 With Tom Holland Real or Fake? New 2024 Movie Speculation Explained

Rumors are teasing a new Back to the Future movie with Tom Holland as Marty McFly, but can they be believed?

By Richard Nebens Posted:
Tom Holland, Back to the Future poster

Speculation is building amongst fans that Back to the Future 4 could come to theaters in 2024, with Tom Holland playing the film's leading role.

Back to the Future 4 Rumors Heating Up

After years of rumors, a new 78-second trailer is making the rounds on YouTube teasing that the Back to the Future franchise is continuing with Back to the Future 4 in 2024.

The trailer shows off current-day Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox as Doctor Emmett Brown and Marty McFly respectively, revisiting their time-traveling shenanigans from the first three movies. The trailer even closes with Fox uttering Lloyd's famous catchphrase when he says, "Time travel? Great Scott."

Lea Thompson and Elizabeth Shue are also seen talking to one another in the trailer, with Thompson previously playing Marty's mother Lorraine and Shue having played Marty's girlfriend Jennifer in 1989's Back to the Future Part II.

The biggest reveal comes with Tom Holland playing a younger version of Marty McFly, talking to Michael J. Fox before revisiting key moments from Fox's first couple of movies. Holland's face is expertly deepfaked onto Fox's body, teasing that he'd take over the younger version of Marty McFly for Back to the Future 4.

Unfortunately, this trailer can easily be debunked as a fake.

The footage of present-day Christopher Lloyd was lifted from a promo video for 2015's LEGO Dimensions video game, which brought nearly three dozen iconic franchises together for a major crossover game with characters in their LEGO forms.

As for Fox, the footage of the original Marty McFly actor is made up of clips from the 2019 Netflix movie See You Yesterday, in which he went full Doc Brown with his, "Great Scott!" line.

The short clip of Holland sharing a moment with Fox is from a scene in Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures' Spider-Man: Far From Home, in which Peter Parker has his suitcase checked in a Venice airport and realizes his Spider-Man suit is packed inside.

Finally, the shots of the DeLorean time machine from the Back to the Future movies are seen in Steven Spielberg's 2018 movie Ready Player One, which also brought dozens of pop culture franchises together into one story.

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Will Back to the Future 4 Be Made?

This is far from the first time fans have been led to believe that Tom Holland was remaking Back to the Future, especially looking back to one of the most popular deepfake videos of the last half-decade.

In February 2020, YouTuber EZRyderX47 posted a video of a scene from the original Back to the Future showing Doc Brown and Marty McFly talking about Marty's mother having "the hots" for him instead of his father.

That video deepfaked Tom Holland's face over Michael J. Fox and Robert Downey Jr.'s face over Christopher Lloyd, leading to a huge fan cry for that movie to be made after Downey and Holland worked so well together in the MCU.

The deepfake video currently has raked in over 11 million views, and after it was posted, Holland himself reacted to the video with Access Hollywood during the premiere event for Disney and Pixar's Onward, visibly impressed by what he saw.

While he joked about the video feeling "illegal" after "someone stole [his] face" before he sent the video to Downey and asked when shooting would start, he made his feelings clear that Back to the Future could not be remade.

The Spider-Man star heaped heavy praise on Fox and Lloyd's efforts by calling it "one of the only perfect movies ever made," saying that he and Downey "couldn’t do it any better."

This seems to put any hope of Back to the Future 4 out of the realm of possibility, especially since Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1991.

He's largely kept up his acting career with voiceover roles in films such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the Stuart Little trilogy over the last three decades, along with cameo roles like the one he had in See You Yesterday. Fox himself believes there doesn't need to be a Back to the Future 4, telling Variety in May 2023 that he "doubts" any other filmmaker can find a more compelling way to tell that story.

Even though Lloyd has still been active in his older age with appearances in projects like The Mandalorian, the odds are almost non-existent that Back to the Future 4 will be made or that the franchise will be rebooted in 2024 or anytime soon.

This is only bolstered by the position of original director Robert Zemeckis, who told Italian outlet Bad Taste that there will "never" be a fourth installment in the franchise.

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- About The Author: Richard Nebens
Richard Nebens joined The Direct in March 2020, now serving as the site's Senior Writer and also working as an assistant editor and content creator. He started his journalism career as a hobby in 2019 and is passionate about sharing news and stories from the entertainment industry, especially comic book movies, comedy, and sci-fi. Richard looks to expand his knowledge about movies and TV every day, and he is eager to stay locked into the latest releases and breaking news at every opportunity.