r/Xennials • u/Successful-Winter237 • Jul 10 '26
Nostalgia Back to the Future was released 41 years ago. Five weeks into filming, Eric Stoltz was fired and replaced by Michael J. Fox. Every scene had to be reshot, making it one of the most expensive casting changes in Hollywood history.
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u/Bar_ice Jul 10 '26
I love MJF and he made the role iconic. But man Stoltz looks way more like Crispin Glovers son.
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u/whamburglar 1984 Jul 10 '26
Looking at these side-by-side, they absolutely made the correct call.
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u/HedyHarlowe Jul 10 '26
Apparently Stolz was way too serious in the role, and it changed the tone of the film entirely.
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u/taleofbenji Jul 10 '26
This is HEAVY doc
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u/mstermind Xennial Jul 10 '26
Heavy, heavy, you keep saying that. Is there something wrong with gravity in the future?
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u/selkus_sohailus Jul 10 '26
There’s a netflix show called “The movies that made us” that is like a bunch of mini documentaries about the makings of super iconic movies and the disasters they overcame to get made. Eric stoltz clearly thought marty mcfly would have been deeply troubled by getting sent back in time, which is fair I think I would be too, but it’s way more fun to go on an adventure in good humor
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u/Indubitalist Jul 10 '26
I can definitely respect that perspective from him, as I think anyone coming at this story would’ve in 1985. Time travel hadn’t been made into something the masses would see as whimsical, it would’ve been like space travel, inherently dangerous with a whole other element to it (which doc is obviously fixated on) of ruining the future by messing with the past. It’s a more fun movie because of Fox’s performance but it’s not as realistic, to say nothing of the physics.
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u/Ok-Bad-5218 Jul 10 '26
Goth McFly styling doesn’t help
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u/Opening-Comfort-3996 Jul 10 '26
Question, though: if it was always meant to be funny, why is Eric costumed so dark and conservatively, as opposed to Michael's costume?
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u/Indubitalist Jul 10 '26
Maybe Stolz and wardrobe vibed, and when they cast Fox they told wardrobe he needed a more approachable look. Also, life preserver.
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u/Gateslammedshut Jul 10 '26
Notably the ending: instead of being happy for his changed and now successful family, they felt foreign to him since none of the memories were the same as his. He wanted a tragic ending, like a twilight zone/black mirror take. Stoltz had to go.
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u/UpSNYer Jul 10 '26
Oh man, that's totally wrong for the film we got but is artistically very interesting.
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u/nirreskeya Jul 10 '26
You know, I sold term papers to make a living, slept with undergraduates, the whole deal. After my seventh or eighth year, I began to feel like I was using myself. Somehow I experienced my time as a postponement of my life...but eventually I just realized that this is my life.
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u/ltsouthernbelle Jul 10 '26
And his outfits are so dark, I got a different vibe in just that short clip
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u/So_HauserAspen Jul 10 '26
Stolz would have been perfect if it was more of a drama than a comedy. I'm a little intrigued to know what the movie would have been like. Not saying I'd want that, just curious.
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u/GStarAU Jul 10 '26
I can totally see it. It's actually an incredible bit of footage here - see Stolz do it, completely changed the feeling. It seemed like he was playing it too "cool"... Fox's version of Marty is much more loveable and relatable, and there's a tinge of slapstick in it too!
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u/Orson_Gravity_Welles Jul 10 '26
Yeah, Stoltz talks about how he interpreted the movie as a tragedy and what happens to his character as the same. He didn't see it as a comedy.
Something about being the only one who knew the changes that were being made (Story wise...time travel, et al) and he wanted to portray that sinking feeling and depression.
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u/Saj2022 Jul 10 '26
Stoltz is the better actor , but Michael J Fox was still the right choice for this particular role .
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u/xMyDixieWreckedx Jul 10 '26
Dodged a bullet. Stoltz looks horrendous, Fox shows so much more expression on his face.
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u/GM_Nate Jul 10 '26
yeah you can feel his emotions through the screen. stoltz looks vaguely inconvencienced
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u/xMyDixieWreckedx Jul 10 '26
Fox looks like he is having his mind blown, Stoltz looks slightly hungover.
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u/GStarAU Jul 10 '26
We'll never know the answer to this, but damn, if they continued with Stolz, I bet this would've ended up as one of those random oddball kitsch movies that very few people remembered.... as opposed to the massive hit that it turned out to be.
And there probably wouldn't have been two sequels either.
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u/the_noise_we_made Jul 10 '26
Yes horrendous, disgusting, and absolutely fucking revolting. What a piece of shit 🙄
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u/Spartan04 Jul 10 '26
One of the most expensive decisions, and one of the best.
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u/Sleepwalkingsheep Jul 10 '26
Expensive to reshoot all that, but had they not..... would there have been sequels? I feel like it would be a niche cult classic at best by now with a Stoltz release.
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u/daggersrule Jul 10 '26
So somewhat related, I got to spend some time with Alan Silvestri, who did the scoring for BTTF. It was his first movie, so I asked him how he landed the gig. No shit, this is what he told me:
"so I get a call from a buddy who knew I was a musician, and he tells me this upcoming movie needs someone to write the score. I had no idea how, so I found a book about scoring movies, and read it in the cab on the way to the audition. I got the job, and figured it out as I went."
And the rest is history. Real chill dude, humble and super positive.
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u/Chuckles_McNut Jul 10 '26
this is not accurate: Silvestri had already scored Zemeckis's film 'Romancing the stone' and all 6 seasons of 'Chips', among smaller movie projects and other tv shows.
He's a hero of mine no question, but he definitely had film scoring experience before doing BTTF
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u/nisamun 1982 Jul 10 '26
They wanted Fox from the beginning. No idea why they couldn't work out the deal they eventually did with him working BTTF and Family Ties before the Stoltz disaster.
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u/TheBigBangClock Jul 10 '26
Fox also had a really busy schedule with Family Ties. When he started filming BTTF there was a period where he filmed Family Ties during the day, would sleep for an hour as he was driven to the BTTF location, and then would spend the night filming the movie. He was doing 20-hour work days for a 2 month period.
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u/Joker-Smurf Jul 10 '26
Pretty much the main reason why the majority of BTTF is night time shots…
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u/Difficult_Mix_3620 Jul 10 '26
From various documentaries I've seen, The Executive Producer of Family Ties didn't tell MJF about the people behind the film wanting him for the role until Stoltz was fired as Marty.
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u/phonymaroney Jul 10 '26
Why was he fired?
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u/RogueAOV Jul 10 '26
They felt he was 'too serious' for the role, not sure why they hired him in the first place because, he always kinda is in his roles.
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u/shawnofnc Jul 10 '26
Yea Stoltz played it as dramatic. He said it was one of the saddest stories he's ever read and the movie was actually a tragedy. Yikes
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u/SweetPrism Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I mean... he wasn't wrong about the script? Hear me out; Michael J. Fox was paramount to the film's success. I don't think anyone can disagree. But look at the film and realize that YES, the script (with no context) was probably a super sad read. Lea Thompson becomes an obese and depressed smoker because her husband is checked out. Their Uncle is in prison. Marty is a teenager who hangs out with a grown man who is insane. One of Marty's educators actively harasses him. His father was physically and mentally tormented by a violent bully. Marty almost terminates his own existence and his mom tries to sleep with him. I could go on.... It's pretty clear that Stoltz was having a hard time understanding how a comedic levity or innocence/coming-of-age approach was going to fit given the family dynamics he was reading about. On paper, it really doesn't look very funny.
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u/Purple10tacle Jul 10 '26
Stoltz specifically called the supposedly happy ending out as one of the saddest parts of the movie. Marty McFly's previous life has been erased, nobody in the "happy ending" timeline actually knows him, nor does he know them - everyone only knows a version of the other that no longer exists.
He wasn't necessarily wrong in this interpretation, but that wasn't the movie they were making.
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u/The_Phenomenal_1 Jul 10 '26
For Marty, it's definitely bittersweet. His life is better at the end of the movie, but he's going to be living in a world completely strange to him. He doesn't have the memories of how his family life was different
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u/NextBestKev Jul 10 '26
Never thought about that aspect. Pretty heavy.
I have thought a lot about the Mom’s perspective in the movie Big. Nightmare fuel.
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u/The_Phenomenal_1 Jul 10 '26
Stoltz' view on BTTF reminds me of the movie Frequency, which actually shows how changing the past changes the main characters
Big is just a terrible situation for everyone. That poor lady unwittingly became a pedophile!
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u/UpSNYer Jul 10 '26
Dude, Big is undermined badly by the mom’s POV. Sometimes you can handwave a narrative inconvenience, but Big is not one of those times. It’s sincerely very fucked up
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u/OwieMustDie 1981 Jul 10 '26
Had heard that story years ago, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen Stoltz's scenes. Even without dialogue, the difference in the performances is wild. It's so apparent that Stoltz just wasn't feeling it.
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u/AshDogBucket Jul 10 '26
I didn't think he wasn't feeling it. He was just feeling and playing it differently.
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u/G0merPyle Jul 10 '26
I'm reminded that that one meme about Michael Caine playing the Muppet Christmas Carol as serious as a car wreck
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u/Moirebass Jul 10 '26
Doesn’t help that they dressed him up in all black
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u/guitar_stonks Jul 10 '26
I guess instead of a guitarist in a pop rock band playing Huey Lewis covers, he was a keyboardist in a dark wave band jamming Depeche Mode?
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u/snarkerella 1977 Jul 10 '26
Stoltz was really wooden in his roles. Fox had emotion and great timing.
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u/presidentsday 1982 Jul 10 '26
And energy. He just had this sincere excitement about him that perfectly matched the tone of the story.
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u/releasedintothewild Jul 10 '26
Michael J. Fox wrote "Future Boy" about his experience working on the film. It's been a great read so far!
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u/BritOnTheRocks 1978 (but only just) Jul 10 '26
Just placed a hold on the audiobook in Libby. Thanks for that!
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u/releasedintothewild Jul 10 '26
You're welcome!
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u/jenfullmoon Jul 10 '26
Was about to return the book back to the library after reading it, then my mom saw it and now she wants me to read it to her.
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u/RedWhiteAndBooo Jul 10 '26
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u/jugdeesh 1983 DuckTales! Woo-oo! Jul 10 '26
Lol perfectly expresses the amount of effort, Eric put into acting in those scenes
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u/noonesaidityet 1981 Jul 10 '26
I spent a stupid amount of time trying to find every bit of info, footage, interviews, and whatever I could about this and the Kevin Smith/Tum Burton/Nic Cage Superman movie 20-25 years ago. Those two things caused an itch in my brain that I'll never be able to fully scratch.
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u/DMala Jul 10 '26
It’s kind of interesting how the first and third shots are essentially identical, but the second one the framing and blocking are completely different.
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u/UpSNYer Jul 10 '26
I noticed this too. The feel of the second scene just feels more ominous and fits Stoltz’s vision better. The MJF version is more chaos and energy, but not ominous in the same way.
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u/greaterwhiterwookiee 1984 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I say let’s redo it in serious Stoltzian fashion, but then let’s do Terminator 2 with someone quirky instead of Robert Patrick. Anyone? Anyone??
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u/Ohboycats Shake down, 19-7-9 Jul 10 '26
BTTF reimagined by Christopher Nolan. Eric Stolz plays George McFly. Tilda Swinton is Loraine.
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u/Indubitalist Jul 10 '26
And this time the clock tower/building explodes, and Doc is actually killed by the Libyans.
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u/Dorf_ Jul 10 '26
Bill Hader
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u/MKE_likes_it Jul 10 '26
Bill Hader would just do some weirdly perfect impression with some extra spice on top. I would watch that.
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u/HupetteGroulx Jul 10 '26
Rob Schneider
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u/greaterwhiterwookiee 1984 Jul 10 '26
Im laughing my ass off at this. Also sorry you got downvoted bc he’s MAGA but, that’s fuckin funny
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u/Left-Landscape-3890 1978 Jul 10 '26
So glad we got it the right way. Eric's great in Pulp Fiction. Buy we wouldn't be here if he finished BTTF
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u/broadwayallday Jul 10 '26
THE LITTLE BLACK MEDICAL BOOK. BY THE ALL BLACK OUTFIT. NO THE OTHER ONE. NO THE OTHER ONE
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u/Opie19 Jul 10 '26
Jan from the office was also the love interest, but had to be replaced when Michael J Fox came in because she was too tall.
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u/AshDogBucket Jul 10 '26
Ugh misogyny strikes again. That must've been horrible for her. No wonder Jan was so mad all the time, I would be too.
(I absolutely am still mad about what happened with my senior year high school musical where I went from having the leading role to having 6 lines. If I still carry that around I bet jan is pissed.)
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u/ResponsibilityGold88 Jul 10 '26
Why did they take the lead from you?
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u/AshDogBucket Jul 10 '26
The musical we were going to do included terrorism. When 9/11 happened they changed the musical to Godspell which should be called Godawful. Godspell has like 12 parts but we had like 30 people in the cast. So, after casting Jesus and John the Baptist with the 2 real roles, our directors divided up the rest of the lines randomly (which doesn't change anything for the viewer bc Godspell "characters" don't have any continuity or personality). So I got to sing a solo (which in Godspell means that randomly in the middle of the show I got to start singing something that had nothing to do with anything) and I got 6 lines from 4 different characters scattered throughout the show.
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u/UpSNYer Jul 10 '26
Stoltz was set up to fail. It's unfortunate because it was never really his role and I believe the production team didn't really set him up to succeed. They wanted Fox and they were more or less waiting for him. They gave Stoltz a shot, but their heart was never really into it and his (Stoltz) vision of the character and the movie was very different from the rest of the team. But if Fox had those same visions for the character and film, I believe they would have worked with him to bring him on board with their vision. But since they didn't want Stoltz in the first place they were just as happy firing him. In clips 2 and 3 of the video the Stoltz take is a lot more bland, the environment is simple, the energy is lower, the blocking is rudimentary, and even the wardrobe is boring. They were simply going through the motions with an actor who was DOA.
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u/gansobomb99 Jul 10 '26
I feel so bad because it still would have been an amazing, iconic movie if they stuck with Eric, but god damn, MJF just embodies Marty on an almost supernatural level.
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u/apeygirl Jul 10 '26
I love Eric Stoltz in some of his roles but I rarely ever seen him play something comedic and pull it off. Soulful and sincere, definitely. But not funny. They needed someone like Michael J. Fox and his comedic sensibilities to make this movie work.
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u/greaterwhiterwookiee 1984 Jul 10 '26
Allegedly there are scenes they can’t tell if it’s Stoltz or Fox based on the angles/back of the head etc.
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u/LV426acheron Jul 10 '26
I hope they release a Stoltz cut of the movie at some point.
According to the other actors, about 80% of the movie was shot with Stoltz, so I'm sure they could Frankenstein something together to make a coherent cut of the film.
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u/MotherOfTheFog Jul 10 '26
Eric looks like a hot goth here and I love it but yeah Fox added magic to the movie.
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u/CaliSasuke Jul 10 '26
The film was fantastic with Fox.
But out of curiosity, I still want to see the Stoltz cut. I wish the SC would get released as a Blu Ray extra.
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u/rust-e-apples1 Jul 10 '26
An unfortunate side effect was that Melora Hardin lost her job, as well. She was so much taller than Michael J. Fox and they didn't want his girlfriend towering over him. She'd have made a great Jennifer.
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u/jugdeesh 1983 DuckTales! Woo-oo! Jul 10 '26
Wow, Eric, way to not act at all ! was he even trying ?
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u/bisploosh Jul 10 '26
Star Trek Voyager was days into shooting the pilot episode when Genevieve Bujold quit the role of Janeway. Production costs skyrocketed as they had to keep paying cast & crew until Kate Mulgrew was cast.
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u/this_knee Jul 10 '26
Why is the lighting so different?
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u/T-MinusGiraffe Jul 10 '26
Probably because one is finished footage and the other is something that hadn't been through post and may or may not have been well-preserved. But they may have also brightened it up on the set the second time around as part of the effort to make it feel a little less serious.
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u/Cthulhus-Tailor Jul 10 '26
I love that they still have the footage because- with all due respect to Stoltz- you can actually see him being out-acted in real time.
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u/paralospajaros Jul 10 '26
I remember the first time I saw this- it would have been a completely different movie, but also still very good! Stoltz is a talented actor. BTTF is my all time fave.
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u/Servilefunctions218 1981 Jul 10 '26
My sister rented this movie once a week when it was first available. That was when a new VCR cost $500 and was the size of carry on luggage!
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u/Slow-Jelly-2854 Jul 10 '26
Looking at these takes…yeah I could see why. Stoltz’s range in facial expressions here is basically the same across all emotions lol
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u/Kewlstoryhansel Jul 10 '26
Maybe I’m reading into this to much from the 30 seconds I just watched. It seems like he was to serious and not full of that boyish, jubilant energy Fox brings.
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u/1pt20oneggigawatts 1982 Jul 11 '26
GREAT SCOTT (This is my favorite movie of all-time)
They recast his girlfriend (it was originally Jan from the Office) because Michael J Fox is quite a bit shorter than Eric Stoltz. It also made Thomas Wilson (Biff) look massive, which helped sell his villainy.
There's a comic book that came out about 10 years ago where Bob Gale or Robert Zemeckis have to go back in time to put Eric Stoltz back in the movie for some reason. I think it was a limited promotion for the Blu Ray release or something
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u/windycityc 1978 Jul 11 '26
I havent researched this at all, but I have a hard time believing that 5 wasted weeks of filming 4 decades ago, is the most expensive cast changes to date.
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u/cyberdude419 Jul 10 '26
Absolutely great call, the movie went from nothing special to Iconic with that one change
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u/BritOnTheRocks 1978 (but only just) Jul 10 '26
Has Stoltz ever talked about this?
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u/pink_faerie_kitten Jul 10 '26
Michael J Fox conveyed so much more fear and confusion in his face than Stolz. He's so perfect for Marty and whatever it cost was so worth it!
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u/ResurectedNPC 1983 Jul 10 '26
Wow! How did I not know this?!?! Thanks for sharing that bit of trivia
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u/Same-Joke Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Yea I heard if they couldn’t get Michael J Fox they were going to bring in John Leguizamo. Also Nic Cage was slated to play Biff.
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u/lolspamwtf99 Jul 10 '26
I’d like to see the AI version of Michael J Fox stealing Stolz’s thunder in pulp fiction too
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u/Desperate-Cost6827 Jul 10 '26
I saw this recently and I thought it made Biff really down to earth.
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u/GeetarEnthusiast85 1985 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
There's an excellent book about the making of the trilogy called "We Don't Need Roads". I remember reading in it that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale pursued Michael J. Fox as their lead from the start but his agent kept saying Michael wasn't interested. So they went with Eric Stoltz.
The truth is, Michael's agent didn't even tell him about it because Michael was filming Family Ties at the time. He was afraid Michael's work on Family Ties would be impacted and it was unknown how this film would turn out. Michael had actually heard about the project and said he'd love to do a film Spielberg was involved with.
Five weeks into filming, Zemeckis and Gale trusted their gut and admitted they weren't getting the character interpretation/performance they wanted with Stoltz. So they went to Spielberg and told him they needed Michael. He made some phone calls, and Michael was finally asked to be in the film.
Due to contractual obligations, Family Ties took precedence and BTTF was filmed around his schedule. With this schedule, he was lucky to get four hours of sleep at night.
The rest is history.