Tales from the Future

Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1951) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), though in the 1990s he diversified into more dramatic fare, including 1994's Forrest Gump, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. His films are characterized by an interest in state-of-the-art special effects, including the early use of match moving in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and the pioneering performance capture techniques seen in The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009). Though Zemeckis has often been pigeonholed as a director interested only in effects, his work has been defended by several critics, including David Thomson, who wrote that "No other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Michael Robert "Bob" Gale (born May 21, 1951) is an American screenwriter who co-wrote the science fiction film Back to the Future with writing partner Robert Zemeckis, and the screenplays for the film's two sequels. Gale also co-produced all three films. Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Gale, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, writer and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is the recipient of various accolades, including three Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center honor, four Directors Guild of America Awards, two BAFTA Awards, a Cecil B. DeMille Award and an AFI Life Achievement Award. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television including Night Gallery and Columbo, he directed the television film Duel (1971) which gained acclaim from critics and audiences. He made his directorial film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974), and became a household name with the 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws. He then directed huge box office successes Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the Indiana Jones original trilogy (1981-89). Spielberg subsequently explored drama in the acclaimed The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987). After a brief hiatus, Spielberg directed the science fiction thriller Jurassic Park (1993), the highest-grossing film ever at the time, and the Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993), which has often been listed as one of the greatest films ever made. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter and for the 1998 World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg continued in the 2000s with science fiction films A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005). He also directed the adventure films The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Ready Player One (2018); the historical dramas Amistad (1997), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017); the musical West Side Story (2021); and the semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022). He has been a producer on several successful films, including Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) as well as the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). Spielberg co-founded Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks, and has served as a producer for many successful films and television series. He is also known for his long collaboration with the composer John Williams, with whom he has worked for all but five of his feature films. Several of Spielberg's works are among the highest-grossing and greatest films all time. Premiere ranked him first place in the list of 100 Most Powerful People in Movies in 2003. In 2013, Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people.

Kathleen Kennedy (born June 5, 1953) is an American film producer and current president of Lucasfilm. In 1981, she co-founded the production company Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg and husband Frank Marshall. Her first film as a producer was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). She subsequently produced the Jurassic Park franchise, the first two of which became two of the top ten highest-grossing films of the 1990s. In 1992, she co-founded The Kennedy/Marshall Company with her husband Frank Marshall. On October 30, 2012, she became the president of Lucasfilm after The Walt Disney Company acquired the company for over $4 billion. She received the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018. Overall, Kennedy participated in the making of 60 films, mostly as executive producer, that garnered 8 Academy Award nominations and over $11 billion worldwide, including three of the highest-grossing films in motion picture history. Kennedy is second only to Spielberg in domestic box office receipts, with over $7 billion as of January 2018.

Frank Wilton Marshall (born September 13, 1946) is an American film producer and director, often working in collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Kennedy. With Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, he was one of the founders of Amblin Entertainment. He is a partner with Kennedy in The Kennedy/Marshall Company, a film production company formed in 1991, which signed a new contract with Columbia Pictures effective April 1, 2009 and in force through to October 31, 2011.

Michael Andrew Fox OC (born June 9, 1961), known professionally as Michael J. Fox, is a retired Canadian-American actor. Beginning his career in the 1970s, he rose to prominence portraying Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989). Fox is famous for his role as protagonist Marty McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990), a critical and commercial success. He went on to headline several films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including Teen Wolf (1985), The Secret of My Success (1987), Casualties of War (1989), Doc Hollywood (1991), and The Frighteners (1996). Fox returned to television on the ABC sitcom Spin City in the lead role of Mike Flaherty from 1996 to 2000. In 1998, Fox disclosed his 1991 diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. He subsequently became an advocate for finding a cure and founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to help fund research. Worsening symptoms forced Fox to reduce his activities and led to his return to television in Spin City when he was still a major movie star. He continued to make guest appearances on television, including recurring roles on the FX comedy-drama Rescue Me (2009) and the CBS legal drama The Good Wife (2010–2016) that garnered him critical acclaim. He voiced the lead roles in the Stuart Little films (1999–2005) and the animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001). His final major role was on the NBC sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show (2013–2014). Fox retired in 2020 due to his declining health. Fox won five Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. He was also appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010, along with being inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame in 2000 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002. For his advocacy of a cure for Parkinson's disease, he received an honorary doctorate in 2010 from the Karolinska Institute and an honorary Oscar in 2022.

Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and on television since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990) and Jim Ignatowski in the comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), for which he won two Emmy Awards. Lloyd came to public attention in Northeastern theater productions during the 1960s and early 1970s, earning Drama Desk and Obie awards for his work. He made his cinematic debut in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and went on to star as Commander Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Professor Plum in Clue (1985), Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Uncle Fester in The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993), Switchblade Sam in Dennis the Menace (1993), Mr. Goodman in Piranha 3D (2010), Bill Crowley in I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016) and David Mansell in Nobody (2021). He earned a third Emmy for his 1992 guest appearance as Alistair Dimple in Road to Avonlea (1992), and won an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in Twenty Bucks (1993). He has done extensive voice work, including Merlock in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990), Grigori Rasputin in Anastasia (1997), the Hacker in the PBS Kids series Cyberchase (2002–present), which earned him Daytime Emmy nominations, and the Woodsman in the Cartoon Network miniseries Over the Garden Wall (2014). Description above from the Wikipedia article Christopher Lloyd, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Lea Katherine Thompson (born May 31, 1961) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and director. She is best known for her roles as Lorraine Baines-McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990), Beverly Switzler in Howard the Duck (1986), and Amanda Jones in Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). Other films for which she is known include All the Right Moves (1983), Red Dawn (1984), Dennis the Menace (1993), and The Beverly Hillbillies (1993). In the 1990s, she played the title character in the sitcom Caroline in the City. From 2011 to 2017, she co-starred as Kathryn Kennish in the ABC Family-turned-Freeform series Switched at Birth. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lea Thompson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Thomas Francis Wilson (born April 15, 1959) is an American actor, writer, musician, painter, voice-over artist and stand-up comedian. He is best known for playing Biff Tannen (and his grandson Griff Tannen and great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen) in the Back to the Future trilogy and Coach Ben Fredricks on NBC's Freaks and Geeks. Description above from the Wikipedia article Thomas F. Wilson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Mary Nell Steenburgen (born February 8, 1953) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. After studying at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1970s, she made her professional acting debut in the Western comedy film Goin' South (1978). Steenburgen went on to earn critical acclaim for her role in Time After Time (1979) and Jonathan Demme's comedy-drama film Melvin and Howard (1980), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.   Marc A. McClure (born March 31, 1957) is an American actor. McClure was born in San Mateo, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Marc McClure, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Fiery, forceful and intimidating character actor James Tolkan has carved out a nice little niche for himself in both movies and television alike as a formidable portrayer of fierce and flinty hard-boiled tough guy types. James Stewart Tolkan was born on June 20, 1931 in Calumet, Michigan. His father, Ralph M. Tolkan, was a cattle dealer. James attended the University of Iowa, Coe College and Eastern Arizona College. After serving a year-long stint in the United States Navy, Tolkan went to New York and studied acting with both Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at the Actors Studio. Short and bald, with beady, intense eyes, a wiry, compact, muscular build, a gruff, jarring, high-decibel voice, and an aggressive, confrontational, blunt-as-a-battle-ax, rough-around-the-edges demeanor, Tolkan has been often cast as rugged, cynical no-nonsense cops, mean, domineering authority figures, and various ruthless and dangerous criminals. Tolkan first began acting in movies in the late 1960s and was highly effective in two pictures for Sidney Lumet: He was a rabidly homophobic police lieutenant in the superbly gritty Serpico (1973) and a sneaky district attorney in the equally excellent Prince of the City (1981). Best known as the obnoxiously overzealous high school principal Gerard Strickland in the Back to the Future films, Tolkan's other most memorable roles include Napolean in Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), a ramrod army officer in WarGames (1983), mayor Robert Culp's mordant, wisecracking assistant in Turk 182 (1985), the hard-nosed Stinger in Top Gun (1986), the choleric Detective Lubric in Masters of the Universe (1987), meek mob accountant Numbers in Dick Tracy (1990), and Wesley Snipes' bullish superior in Boiling Point (1993).

Claudia Wells (born July 5, 1966 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is an American actress and businesswoman, best known for her role as Jennifer Parker in the film Back to the Future (1985). She grew up in Venezuela and then San Francisco, California and after high school, studied voice and dance before pursuing acting as a career. She studied at the American Conservatory Theater and has performed soprano roles with the San Francisco Opera.

Dean Raymond Cundey (born March 12, 1946) is an American cinematographer and film director. He is known for his collaborations with John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, as well as his extensive work in the horror genre, in addition to numerous family and comedy films. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and has been nominated for numerous BAFTAs and BSC Awards.

From Wikipedia, the free encylopedia. Arthur Robert Schmidt (June 17, 1937 – August 5, 2023) was an American film editor with about 27 film credits between 1977 and 2005. Schmidt had an extended collaboration with director Robert Zemeckis from the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985—1990) to Cast Away (2000). Description above from the Wikipedia article Arthur Schmidt, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.