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Great Scott! Whether it's a once-off stunt or the shape of things to come - I can exclusively reveal that the mostly stodgy-odgy classics channel TCM (DStv 109) is getting a massive, quality dose of the future for Christmas, majorly revamping it's schedule by adding recent quality classics like ... gasp! ... the Back to the Future trilogy!
DStv decoders and flux capacitors everywhere won't know quite what hit them when all three of the Back to the Future films will unspool on consecutive nights for the first time on TCM - movies made in the late 80s!
TCM tells me Back to the Future I hits on Friday 9 December at 21:00; Back to the Future II is on on Saturday 10 December at 21:00; and Back to the Future III shows on Sunday 11 December at 21:00. Besides several repeats later during the month, the Back to the Future trilogy is also perfectly scheduled on 24 December when all 3 movies will be shown back-to-back.
Back to the Future I will start at 15:15 on TCM on 24 December, followed by Back to the Future II at 18:20, and Back to the Future III at 20:05.
Last week I asked Alan Musa, the vice president and general manager for the Pan Middle East and Africa (MEA) region of Turner Broadcasting Systems International that runs TCM, about the addition of the Back to the Future movies and films like Jaws to the December schedule. I wanted to know whether this is a December holiday stunt or part of a bigger programming drive adaptation to the TCM schedule.
''It has always been our strategy to introduce more contemporary classics to TCM,'' says Alan Musa. "'This is a vision that I introduced a few years back – the idea being that classic movies are not dictated by the age of the movie, but more by the age of the viewer. A classic movie to today's 40 year old viewer would be Back to the Future, when the said same viewer would have been 15. A great contemporary classic like Jaws will speak volumes to a 53 year viewer today, who would have been a terrified 18 year old in a 1975 movie theatre,'' he says.
