In the 1980s, “Back to the Future” and its two sequels were giant film hits. Now, the Broadway musical is playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. Winner of the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, this production took longer to bring to the stage than all three films took to make.

Its success is because of the partnership between the film’s composer, Alan Silvestri and music producer Glen Ballard, who collaborated on the music and lyrics for the production.

The idea of turning “Back to the Future” into a stage musical got started in 2006. Once Silvestri and Ballard were on board, producing the show began.

Although Silvestri composed the now-iconic score of the original film trilogy, co-creator and producer BobGale explained that producer Steven Spielberg was skeptical of his ability at first because he’d never done an orchestral score.

“We had had one preview where it was all temp music. And then in our next preview, we had about half of the score recorded. So we dropped those cues in, and we’re watching the movie with Alan’s cues in the movie. And Steven turns to Bob and I’m sitting right next to him and Steven says, ‘This is what your score should sound like.’ And without missing a beat, Bob said, ‘Steven, that is the score.’ So when we set out to do the musical, the first thing was the theme. We have to use the theme because that is so identifiable,” he said.

Silvestri said that the original theme sounded like a pop tune to him. When transforming it for the musical, he and Ballard used its tune in the opening song.

“I remember the thought process was, we need an opening number and then another thought appeared. ‘Back to the Future’ is about time. So those are two things. And then Glen said, you know, it’s only a matter of time... So that’s kind of actually how the whole musical happened,” Silvestri shared.

Ballard explained how he lets each character shine in the show.

“My primary task in writing for a musical is to make sure that every character has a close up. And the closeup is the song. Because, I mean, let’s face it, you’re sitting in a theater, you have certain distance from the audience, so there are no close ups. How do you get close to a character through the song? Bob Gale and Bob Zemeckis created these characters that are iconic. So the mission was to make sure that every character is revealed through the song... This is when we find out really more about them than you would in the movie,” Ballard said.

“Back to the Future: the Musical” is now playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through December 1st. For tickets, go to BroadwayinHollywood.com. Then, it moves to Orange County for its run at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts starting Dec. 26. Those tickets are now on sale at SCFTA.org.

Watch the full video above.

Watch "LA Times Today" at 8 and 11 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.