When People Thought the ‘Back to the Future II’ Hoverboard Was Real

Robert Zemeckis asked for it.

When he appeared in promotional footage to coincide with the release of 1989’s Back to the Future Part II, Zemeckis was asked about the hoverboard, the futuristic skateboard that glides over the ground and is employed by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) when he finds himself chased by rival Biff Tannen and goons in 2015 Hill Valley.

“The hoverboard is a board that hovers on magnetic energy, and it works just like a skateboard except it doesn’t have any wheels,” he said. “You don’t have to have any pavement to hover on.”

Zemeckis went on to explain the product was part of a larger toy conspiracy: “They’ve been around for years, it’s just that parents’ groups have not let the toy manufacturers make them. We got our hands on some and we put them in the movie.”

The hoverboard was, of course, a fictional construct, one that simply wasn’t possible in the real world given the technology of the 1980s. (Or now, but more on that later.) But thanks to Zemeckis’s tongue-in-cheek answer and a wave of stories spread on school playgrounds, a number of people were convinced the hoverboard was real and that the future was being suppressed by fun-hating authoritarians.

1. Hello, McFly
2. The Conspiracy
3. Hovercrafting

Hello, McFly

Urban myths about consumer products are a common part of childhood folklore. In the 1970s, word spread that the actor portraying “Mikey” in commercials for Life cereal, John Gilchrist, had perished after consuming a deadly combination of Pop Rocks and soda. (The fatal gastrointestinal blow supposedly came when the carbonation in both proved too much for his tiny stomach.)

But Gilchrist was fine. So were kids who enjoyed Bubble Yum chewing gum even as rumors spread the secret to its chewiness was processed spider eggs. Such stories may have given kids a chance to express a rising distrust for authority or conventional wisdom—so believing some futuristic technology was being kept from them wasn’t much of a leap.

The hoverboard depicted in Back to the Future Part II was the work of John Bell, a concept designer recruited by Robert Zemeckis and his co-writer and producer Bob Gale following the success of 1985’s Back to the Future. That film—which followed teenager Marty McFly as he uses his pal Doc Brown’s DeLorean to travel back to 1955 and make sure his parents get together while also saving Doc’s life—teased another installment at its conclusion. (Doc, for those who may not recall, visits Marty after returning from the “future” of 2015.)

Once they were on board, Bell and his colleague Dave Carson began to conceive of what Hill Valley might look like in 30 years. He initially envisioned the hoverboard as a shrunken type of hovercraft with the aesthetics of a drag racer—exhaust pipes and all. (While it was the first hoverboard in Future lore, it was not the first-ever incorporation of a hovering skateboard in fiction. One is mentioned in the 1967 sci-fi novel The Hole in the Zero by M.K. Joseph.)

Zemeckis asked Bell to simplify the design. Marty’s hoverboard ultimately resembled little more than a skateboard without wheels and featured a prominent logo for toymaker Mattel, which the script—or possibly someone at Universal’s tie-in marketing arm—imagined as a possible manufacturer for the product. Marty swipes a pink hoverboard from a little girl and flees, with Biff and his henchmen in pursuit. (Biff’s board actually adheres to Bell’s idea of a souped-up racer, with customized touches.)

The sequence was accomplished through conventional means, including magnets embedded in sneakers (so they’d appear to snap onto the decks) and wires that suspended the actors above the ground. Rear projection created a sense of movement.

But it wasn’t without risk: During a sequence in which several stunt performers were suspended on a crane and soaring toward a building, one stuntwoman, Cheryl Wheeler, fell from a height of 30 feet and sustained serious injuries. (Wheeler had replaced another stunt performer who was wary of how the sequence was being staged and bowed out.)

Even simulating a hoverboard in action was dangerous; the real thing, had it existed, would probably have proved a catastrophe. But in a special intended to promote the film, both Zemeckis and the narrator spoke earnestly of the hoverboards, as though they were genuine props. The promo video aired on network television prior to the film’s debut on November 22, 1989. And by that point, both parents and their kids were assuming Mattel’s toy would be something they could stick under a Christmas tree.

The Conspiracy

Industrial Light and Magic, the effects house that worked on the films, began to receive calls shortly after the promotional footage aired; parents wanted to know where hoverboards could be purchased. According to Caseen Gaines, who authored 2015's We Don't Need Roads, a book on the making of the trilogy, one parent cited the Zemeckis interview as the reason the product was credible.

A letter that a person named Lance Hall sent to the Miami Herald in December 1989 was typical of the ensuing consumer confusion, which married wishful thinking (a real hoverboard) with the conspiratorial.

“I just saw the movie Back to the Future II,” Hall wrote. “My brother says the hoverboards Michael J. Fox rides on are real but it’s illegal to sell them because they’re too dangerous. Do hoverboards really exist?”

The Herald reached out to Kris Kelley, a spokesperson for Amblin, the Steven Spielberg production company behind the Back to the Future series. “[Zemeckis] thought it would be a good joke, but it wasn’t taken that way,” Kelley said. “We began to hear from parents who wanted them outlawed.”

Mattel was also brought into the fray. A 1-800 number set up by the company intended to assist consumers with toy assembly or operating instructions during the holiday season was instead bombarded with queries about the hoverboard, which had by that point developed a reputation for possibly maiming children.

“In most cases, we make it clear it was made specifically for the movie,” Mattel spokesperson Glenn Bozarth said. “But if they’ve got a sense of humor, we tell them to wait until 2015.”

As it turns out, Bozarth’s joke was something of a prediction.

Hovercrafting

In 2014, a video began circulating online featuring skateboard legend Tony Hawk and Christopher Lloyd, the actor who portrayed Doc Brown in the Back to the Future films. They were demonstrating HUVr, which was purportedly a functional hoverboard akin to the one seen in the sequel.

The footage is sincere, with little hint of the sense of humor behind it: It was produced by Funny or Die, the humor label behind a series of viral videos like Will Ferrell’s encounter with his toddler landlord. Some viewers took it seriously, and the are-hoverboards-real conversation was renewed.

Not long after, in 2015, luxury automaker Lexus offered a glimpse of a hoverboard that was no joke. The device—which resembled Jabba’s barge from Return of the Jedi more than the slim board used by McFly—operated on superconductors and magnets cooled by liquid nitrogen. It could not, as the fictional board did, hover over solid, unprepped pavement. But given proper surface elements, it could achieve lift.

But Lexus never intended to develop it further, or put it up for sale—it was created for an ad campaign with technology sourced from German engineers. Making it actually move was another engineering challenge altogether. The board could surge forward, but testers, including The Verge, concluded it was highly impractical. For one thing, the board required a superconductor track, which is something cities are unlikely to construct. For another, balance was hard to maintain. (And so was the liquid nitrogen, which was good for about 20 minutes of travel time.)

Other enterprising (or nostalgic) souls have tried to develop real hoverboards with mixed results. The Mattel prop hoverboard from the film, which was signed by Fox, sold for $501,200 in 2021—a value that was perhaps realized not only as being a part of movie history but urban legend infamy.

But why did Zemeckis conceive of his tall tale in the first place? In all likelihood, the filmmaker was growing disenchanted with audiences demanding to know how effects were accomplished, and so he began to explain that they weren’t effects at all.

“I remember when someone asked Bob how he did the hoverboard sequences in Back to the Future,” Michael J, Fox said in 1996. “Bob would say, ‘What do you mean, how did we do it? It’s a real hoverboard. It flies. Michael just practiced a lot.’ ”

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