Today marks the date Marty McFly, Doc Brown and Jennifer Parker found themselves 26 years in the future. You can find lots of takes on how their Oct. 21, 2015 lines up with the our Oct. 21, 2015.
Back then, the movie also predicted there’d still be newspapers (and even zoned editions). Here’s the movie version (which is dated Oct. 22), via USA TODAY.
And there are still newspapers, although they and the industry have certainly changed a lot since. In 1989, there were 56,900 people employed by newspapers. In 2013, according to Pew Research Center, there were 36,700. In 1990, weekday circulation at newspapers was about 62.3 million, according to Pew. In 2014, it was 44.1 million.
In an interview with the “Today” show, “Back to the Future II” writer Bob Gale admitted to missing out big on predicting mobile.
We didn’t figure that one out at all. If you were going to say, what would Doc Brown be surprised by if he actually got to 2015, that would probably be it. This is a technology that nobody saw coming in 1989, and it’s totally ubiquitous now and has totally changed how people live.
I’m pretty sure “Back to the Future II” writers didn’t see emojis coming, either. Here’s the real USA TODAY from Oct. 21, 2015, via Kiosko:
If it’s not quite future-y enough for you, check out USA TODAY’s website. Their logo today looks awfully familiar.
USA Today will also include a replica of the original front tomorrow to wrap around the paper, Kristina Monllos reported for Adweek.
“This movie had some great product placement, so we knew this was a great chance to have some fun with branded content,” said Matt Urbanos, vp of brand and creative strategy at Gannett, adding, “This was a moment that was 30 years in the making, and there was no way we were going to let it pass by. We also felt this was the perfect opportunity to show brands how we can effectively partner with them across all our platforms.”
Editor’s note: A line has been added noting that the front page from the movie is from Oct. 22.
