A live-action Rick and Morty teaser from Adult Swim has sent fans into a frenzy, and while Back to the Future Part IV will still likely never happen, Christopher Lloyd may yet be able to reprise his iconic mad scientist role in the form of real-life Rick. The animated science fiction comedy series has won multiple Emmys for its cutting, satirical, reflexive writing, and with a recent renewal for 70 episodes from co-creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, a life-action foray isn't beyond the realm of possibility. With the show's origins deeply indebted to Back to the Future (1985), right down to the titular duo's names and characterization, a live-action Rick and Morty could be the closest audiences get to a fourth installment in the classic 80s franchise.
Adult Swim has ginned up fan engagement for its flagship franchise in a number of ways over the years, ranging from non-canon animated shorts of various disciplines to a nationwide tour of the seemingly Oscar-Meyer-inspired Rick and Morty Rickmobile. Most recently, a post went out on social media featuring Christopher Lloyd and Jaeden Martell as live-action counterparts to Grandpa Rick and his grandson Morty, with the caption "C-132." Whether this is meant to portend future live-action elements of the show is unclear, as nearly all ancillary Rick and Morty marketing material of this kind has safely avoided impacting the main series. But with the delayed season 5 finale looming, and the curious caption referencing a different dimension from the show's usual C-137 (dimension C-132 is explored in the Rick and Morty comics), the possibility of a live-action Rick and Morty film is alive—and with it, hopes for Lloyd to embody Doc Brown one more time.
The Back to the Future franchise wrapped up as a trilogy in 1990 with Part III, but the story of zany outcast scientist Doc Brown and his wide-eyed teenaged companion Marty has endured in the public consciousness. Though writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale have stated a fourth film will never happen, audience interest in another sequel once polled higher than followups to Toy Story or Indiana Jones, which have each received fourth films far after their original trilogies' completion. Despite this, the Gale's logic is sound: a Back to the Future feature film (a 2015 short "Doc Brown Saves the World" accompanied the 30th anniversary DVD/Blu-Ray release) cannot exist without Fox's Marty, and with his Parkinson's, the whole enterprise is fatally flawed. While Gale once cited Telltale Games' Back to the Future: The Game as being the closest thing to Part IV that would ever happen, a new Rick and Morty feature with Lloyd in the lead role could spiritually fulfill the need for a fourth appearance as Doc Brown. After all, the two properties are fundamentally linked.
Rick and Morty began as a parody of the Back to the Future premise. While submitting webisodes to the Channel 101 film festival in the 2000s, Roiland created the brief pilot The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti, a shock-comic take on the odd pairing of old-man scientist and young dimwitted boy. Later, Harmon reached out to Roiland for ideas to pitch Adult Swim, and they shaped the concept into a more mature (but not too mature) half-hour format. And the rest, they say, is history.
While it remains, for the moment, a mystery if Rick and Morty will pursue a live-action film or smaller component, the recent teaser is exciting nonetheless. And what's more—it suggests that any potential step in that direction will have the good sense to secure Christopher Lloyd for the role. For fans yearning to see the legendary character actor delight in science fiction antics again, this may be as good as it gets.