The writer of the hugely popular Back To The Future films has played down any suggestion that they will follow in the footsteps of other 1980s classics Indiana Jones and Die Hard by making a fourth movie.
Bob Gale was talking at the Make-A-Wish Foundation gala when he said. "Let me answer one question before anyone asks it, which is, 'Is there ever going to be a Back to the Future Part IV'? No."
Forced to defend his reasons when the crowd began to boo, he said, "Well now, wait a minute now. We've all seen sometimes where they make one too many sequels and you say, 'Maybe they shouldn't have done that.' I'm not going to name any names of movies, but you know what they are!.
"But more importantly, as I'm sure you all know, Michael J. Fox is not in the best of shape with his Parkinson's," he added. "The idea of making another Back to the Future movie without Michael J. Fox — you know, that's like saying 'I'm going to cook you a steak dinner and I'm going to hold the beef.' You can't do that."
"The filmmakers - we all love the three Back to the Future movies just the way they are. I'm sure Universal would love it if we were to say to them, 'Hey, let's do another one,' but we don't think we could ever make a fourth one that would live up to how great the first three are, so we're going to leave well enough alone."
Back to the Future was made in 1985, and propelled its main actor Michael J Fox to superstardom. It spawned two sequels and an animated series.