1.21 Gigawatts! Run for it, Marty! It’s one of the most quotable movies from the 1980s, filled with comedy, action, history, rock n' roll, and science. He’s trapped in 1955 and he needs to get back to 1985, the year of Huey Lewis and the News and Pepsi Free. And only Doctor Emmett Brown can help him get Back… to the Future! Here we look at 10 things you never knew aboutBack to The Future.
10The Original Marty McFly.
It’s arguably the best-known part of theBack to the Future lore. Director Robert Zemeckis wanted Michael J. Fox to play the lead, but the young actor was simply too tied up with the hit sitcomFamily Ties. So the acclaimed star of the movie Mask, Eric Stoltz, was cast as Marty McFly instead. What’s lesser known is exactly how much of the movie was shot with Stoltz, who learned to skateboard and play guitar for the part. Tom Wilson, who played bully Biff Tannen, has said Stoltz was a bit “method.” Christopher Lloyd was apparently so used to calling him “Marty” that he didn’t realize Eric was his actual first name till after the part was recast. All of his scenes were eventually reshot withMichael J. Fox, of course, but Stoltz was able to reunite with his pal Lea Thompson. The two costarred in 1987’sSome Kind of Wonderful.
9The Potential Marty McFlys.
Before Stoltz was hired and fired and Fox finally agreed to make it work with his already exhausting television shooting schedule, a number of other actors were considered for the role ofMarty McFly. Those names include Johnny Depp, John Cusack, Ralph Macchio, and C. Thomas Howell, who was said to be in close contention with Stoltz.
8The potential Doc Browns.
Christopher Lloyd, part of the ensemble of the TV seriesTaxiwhich ran from 1978 till 1983, seems irreplaceable asDoctor Emmett Brownin the minds and hearts of fans around the world. But before he landed the role, some other big names were considered for the part, including John Lithgow, Dudley Moore, and Jeff Goldblum. Imagine those memes!
7The original Biff.
Tim Robbins was one of the actors considered for the role of Biff before it was ultimately given to Tom Wilson. But the original Biff, at least in name, is a real person. Biff Tannen’s name was a bit of an inside joke between Zemeckis and Gale, who’d had an unpleasant experience with a Universal Pictures executive during a script meeting about another movie. The name of that executive? Ned Tanen. Heh.
6A Tale of Two Presidents.
Whittier High School stands in for the fictitious Hill Valley High School in Back to the Future. It’s the school attended by future President Richard Nixon, as a teenager. There’s of course a great joke about Ronald Reagan, a two-term President in the ’80s, inBack to the Future. Reagan reportedly enjoyed the joke so much that he asked his White House projectionist to rewind it. He even quotedBack to the Futurein his 1986 State of the Union address and was said to have been offered a small role inBack to the FutureIII. He would have been the mayor of the Old West Hill Valley.
5The Spaceman from Pluto
Time travel flicks likeThe Final Countdown,Time Bandits, andSomewhere in Timewere all box office failures, which reportedly led at least one studio executive to an anxiety induced last minute suggestion. Sid Sheinberg has since denied thinking it was a good idea, but producer Steven Spielberg contends that the executive very seriously introduced the idea of retitling the movie to Spaceman from Pluto. (Darth Vader from Vulcan would have undoubtedly been a more expensive proposition.) Other reports contend that Sheinberg was more concerned about the chimpanzee.
4Yes, there was almost a chimp in Back to the Future.
The original script gave the Professor, later changed to Doc, a chimp named Shemp. Thank you, studio executive, for making sure we got the lovable Einstein, instead.
3Doc Brown’s Tribute to Doctor Strangelove.
There’s a Stanley Kubrick Easter Egg in Doc Brown’s garage. A label on the amplifier reads CRM 114 - the same name as a piece of equipment inDoctor Strangelove.
2The Power of Love.
Huey Lewis, who sings the hit soundtrack songs “Back in Time” and “The Power of Love,” plays one of the judges who is unimpressed by Marty’s flashy guitar shredding. Huey Lewis and the News turned down an offer to write the theme song forGhostbusters. Legend has it thatGhostbustersproducers played “I Want a New Drug” by Lewis to Ray Parker Jr. and asked him to write something similar.Ghostbusterscertainly does sound similar. The two songwriters reached an out of court settlement in 1995.
1’To Be Continued…' was not seen in theaters.
Chalk it up to the “Sinbad made a genie movie” phenomenon, but no mater how many people claim otherwise, the phrase “TO BE CONTINUED” that appears after theDeLoreangoes into the future simply was not seen in theaters. It wasn’t added to the end of the film until the home video release.
