This post has been updated.
Of all the futuristic technology imagined in Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly’s self-lacing Nike sneakers have remained one of those items that fans of the movie (and legions of sneaker nerds) have always hoped would become a reality.
Today is that day. It’s October 21, 2015, the future date that McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) travels to in order to save his son, and after months of rumors, Nike has officially announced that it will release the self-lacing Nike Mag in spring 2016.
The limited edition sneakers will only be available via eBay auctions, with proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The foundation conducts research on Parkinson’s Disease, which the actor suffers from.
Nike has already sent a pair of the sneakers to Fox, and a tweet by the foundation shows the self-lacing mechanism in action.
The total sales from auctions should easily reach into the millions. Last time Nike released the Mags was 2011, when it put 1,500 pairs up on eBay for ten days. It raised $4.7 million, which another charitable organization dedicated to Parkinson’s research matched, bringing the total to $9.4 million.
It was the most hyped sneaker event of the year, if not the decade, and that was for a version of the sneakers that didn’t offer the most futuristic and desirable feature dreamed up in Back to the Future Part II: the self-lacing “power laces.” The sneakers have actually been in the works since at least 2005, and Nike filed a patent for an automatic lacing system in 2009.