All three installments of the Doc Brown turns the DeLorean into a ground-breaking invention, Back to the Future morphs its tautly-written storyline into an ingenious depiction of coming-of-age hijinks and complex familial relationships.
While most sequels take the well-trodden path and harp on the legacy of their predecessor, Back to the Future II dares to tread a different route. Instead of harking back to the past, Back to the Future II sets its eyes on a future timeline and focuses more on the convoluted nature of time travel. Although it has less heart and nostalgia than Back to the Future, it makes up for these pitfalls with its ambitiousness and high-stakes drama. Almost setting up a redundant pattern for the franchise, Back to the Future III deviates further from the ingredients of its preceding films and carves its own mark by switching Marty and Doc's roles. Every installment in the trilogy is commendable in its own right, but not all of them were treated equally at the box office.
With an original box office collection of $389 million, the first Back to the Future led the box office collection of the trilogy. Back to the Future II was not too far behind with its $332 million box office revenue, but its budget was almost two times more than the first one. Following the second movie's financial decline, Back to the Future III further weakened the franchise's box office legs by earning close to $244 million. The sudden fall in the Back to the Future franchise box office numbers can be attributed to the fact that despite bigger budgets, most sequels do not garner more profits than their predecessors (via Contently). However, beyond empirical evidence and facts, there were other factors that contributed to the downfall of Back to the Future's sequel movies and their box office results.
Why Back To The Future Part III's Box Office Was The Franchise's Lowest
As explained by the franchise's producer Bob Gale (via Back to the Future 2's cliffhanger ending simply did not sit too well with most people, meaning this didn't massively benefit the third movie. Bob Gale's argument makes sense, because the films seem a lot better in hindsight when they are watched in succession and treated as interwoven threads of the same fabric.
Back to the Future still holds up as a standalone, and even Part II has enough time travel intrigue to keep most viewers engaged. Part III, however, is more of a character study that is best enjoyed when treated as a swan song to the trilogy's beloved characters. Owing to this, it is fair to say that Back to the Future III's box office slump can be primarily attributed to its subpar marketing and sudden shifts in story beats. Considering how movie marketing has substantially evolved since the advent of the internet, Back to the Future sequels would have likely flirted with a lot more virality if they were released today. Fortunately, even without being initially appreciated, the sequels have stood the test of time.
