Steven Spielberg was one of the producers but it’s always Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale who get the most creative credits for the movie. What creative contributions did Spielberg make to the film?
shareSpielberg decided that one of Lorraine's brothers should wear a coonskin tail hat at the dinner table.
shareRobert Zemeckis was lumbered with Eric Stoltz. He never wanted him, he wanted Michael J. Fox but couldn't get him because Fox was basically carrying Family Ties at that time while Meredith Baxter was having a baby. Universal executive Sid Sheinberg wanted Stoltz (because of Mask) over the other choices like Charlie Sheen, Ralph Macchio etc.
Stoltz did just over four weeks of filming from November 26th 1984 - December 30th 1984 before Zemeckis realized he wasn't getting the performance out of him he wanted and it was time to replace him. Baxter had returned to Family Ties so Fox's schedule was a bit more flexible and Fox agrees to do BTTF but the transition couldn't happen instantly so without telling Stoltz, Zemeckis and the rest of the crew (who saw Stoltz being fired as good news) were filming around him. They're not filming Marty during his exchanges with the likes of Doc and the others, they're just filming footage of them, and the set designers were told not to properly dress the sets he's filming on.
Zemeckis fires Stoltz on January 10th, Fox starts on January 15th. Because of all this, filming had fallen 34 days behind schedule, the budget had increased by nearly 4 million, while Stoltz still got his full salary.
The point to all this? I think this was allowed to happen precisely because of Spielberg being executive producer and good friends with Zemeckis and having the clout and influence to get away with such a messy shoot. It's not as if Zemeckis had done big influential films or blockbusters like Spielberg had before this. So I think we got the perfect actor for Marty McFly because of him.
In the March 1989 issue (#58) of a French magazine called Mad Movies, there was this exchange between the interviewer and Eric Stoltz…
Q: Do you remember your experience on Back to the Future? You were originally hired to play the Michael J. Fox role and it only lasted a week or two…
A: Six weeks! I remember a miserable and very unpleasant experience. The director, Robert Zemeckis, and I were not on the same wavelength. For example, he loved Huey Lewis and the News and I didn’t find it hot. I don’t remember much else, it was so long ago. On the other hand, Christopher Lloyd was on the same wavelength.
And?
shareJust putting it out there since that bit about Christopher Lloyd doesn't get mentioned when Stoltz is interviewed.
sharebut what does that Stoltz answer even mean ?
He doesn't find Huey "hot" ???
(and neither does CL)
Stoltz didn't think they were that popular. Presumably, he thought that a teenager like Marty McFly (a rock guitarist with a black clothes obsession) wouldn't be listening to them.
shareHe was right. His Marty was punk, he would have been listening to bands like The Replacements or Government Issue.
shareI would've liked to have seen the Stoltz version of this movie. He took a more serious approach to the character of Marty and to the film because he felt that's what suited it, and he may have been right.
For example, there's some inconsistencies in the tone ie take the character of Biff, who was just supposed to be a tough guy, then he suddenly becomes a violent rapist all of a sudden in the car? Then you have the mother coming onto her yet unborn son. This is not family friendly material, no matter what way you spin it.
You can say quite a few family films from the 70's and 80's aren't consistent in tone and aren't family friendly material - Grease, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders, The Goonies, Big, Adventures In Babysitting, Ghostbusters, Twins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit...
Ghostbusters literally has Ray fantasizing about getting a blow job from a ghost, and a possessed Dana wanting to bang Peter. Family films used to be just that - appealing to kids and adults unlike now where they're just safe and juvenile.
Biff was a bully who fancied Lorraine then went to extremes with her after drinking too much. Seemed logical to me. And Lorraine fancying Marty? Never understood what was wrong with that considering she didn't know he was her son, and as soon as she kisses him she feels sick. If anything it was against incest. But as it happens that's the reason why Disney said the script was too dirty, and Columbia said it wasn't dirty enough😂
That makes sense about Columbia. That studio was always taking chances on more challenging scripts that the others were too scared to tackle.
shareColumbia also produced The Karate Kid, whose star was considered for BTTF. More about the connections between both films: https://popcultmaster.com/2020/12/06/danny-and-marty/
Producer Bob Gale once said this about how Marty was originally supposed to be a darker character: "He was so despondent about how messed-up his life was, he was going to commit suicide. We thought that was a good idea for way longer than we should have. Finally, we said – We can’t have the main character be someone who wants to kill himself."
This was the script that Stoltz was working with - no suicidal thoughts but a tone that's more akin to a teen movie: https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/bttf4th.pdf
You don't film a whole movie with an actor you don't like. Doesn't happen.
Plus you don't get to REFILM a whole movie just to change an actor.
Something shady was going on with this movie. Who knows if we will ever find out what was going on.
But the only one who had the power to change a lead actor and film a movie again with a new actor is Spielberg.
4 weeks is not the whole movie.
shareHe filmed the WHOLE movie. All the big set pieces. All they needed to finish were pick up scenes and voice looping.
They really filmed this movie TWICE.
And I'm sure there is a working print of the Stoltz version.
Got any proof that they filmed the whole movie?
shareDo your research. There are small clips and photos of Stoltz in all the major scenes.
shareNo there's just a few pics and clips from various scenes. So Zemeckis and other people who worked on the film have literally admitted they filmed for two full weeks around him without letting him know they were actually going to fire him, and you think there's something else going on?
shareStandard filming takes about 2 months to 4 depending. Longer if you use outrageous examples like Kubrick.
6 weeks is almost a complete film shoot.
They had ALL the major scenes with Stoltz. Then they filmed them again.
I wouldn't believe Zemeckis. He and the others sucker punched Crispin Glover. He sued them and won.
Wonder why Stoltz didn't sue? They must have made it worth his while. We'll never know.
Again, he did 4 weeks. He wasn't being filmed properly nor were the sets being dressed properly for the other two because they wanted rid of him and were waiting for Fox.
You keep saying they had all the major scenes with him without proof.
You don't believe Zemeckis even though admitting you filmed for two weeks without telling the lead you're going to fire him makes you look bad?
Stoltz didn't sue because he got his full salary despite not completing the film like I said.
Look up an interview with Christopher Lloyd on YT.
He says at the time he didn't know if he could hit his marks AGAIN. What part of AGAIN is not clear? You can only do something AGAIN if you did it before and completed it.
They only released certain scenes but more pictures. They filmed the scenes in the beginning where he gets caught by the Principal for being late. They filmed the scenes where he first arrives in 55. They filmed the scene where the father gets bulllied by Biff. They filmed the chase sequences because there are numerous photos of Stoltz dressed in the 50s costume and holding a skateboard. They filmed the scenes where he met Lorraine because there are pictures of it. Any scene with Lloyd, they completed. There are also picture of Stoltz on the Enchantment Under the Sea school dance.
They filmed this movie Twice. And since Lloyd stated that Spielberg was present when it was announced that Stoltz was fired, that answers the question of the original post.
Crispin Glover (for the Anthem site circa 2019): "We had gotten close to being done when they replaced the lead actor. I was almost done and just had a little bit more to shoot. I felt like the work was good, so it’s strange to have to reshoot work that you felt good about."
Thomas Wilson told Chris Hardwick on his Nerdist podcast: "I shot with Eric Stoltz for six or seven weeks. We shot almost the whole movie. I mean we were pretty much done. We were at the point where you're looking at each other like 'So you got anything lined up after this? Any TV shows or whatever'?"
Zemeckis has a colleague named Joel Silver who justified the quick firing of Lori Petty from Demolition Man by saying: "It’s a lot cheaper than shooting the whole movie like they did in Back to the Future. Eric Stoltz was the lead but, the last week, they realized it was terrible and reshot the whole movie with Michael J. Fox."
Something shady was going on with this movie. Who knows if we will ever find out what was going on.
Thank you.
The film was basically completed. When the Stoltz scandal occurred All the main actors stated that they worried they would be fired too. I mean, they were basically shooting the movie again. It wasn’t paranoid of them to worry.
This isn’t the forum for it but their is a lot of occult symbolism surrounding the movie, Stoltz and Fox. Again this whole series had a lot of shady things going on in the backrooms.
Also, I think Stoltz could not sue because they paid him for a completed film. I really think they worked BOTH films to post production. Those who are connected were able to see the Stoltz version.
Considering the inside out behavior of occultists, consider that we the public got the worst version.
It seems like the elephant in the room was the original ending involving a black maid. Eric's agent at the time, Helen Sugland, is a black woman. In her article about Crispin for The Guardian, Hadley Freeman wrote...
Glover, horrified that audiences thought he was in the film, sued and the case was settled out of court. But in fact, Glover brings up the subject himself when discussing how he is writing what he describes as “a standard word book” about propaganda “in which I address the Back to the Future issue in great detail”.
This specific issue was Glover’s objection to the original film’s ending, which suggests that the reason the McFly parents are happy and in love is because they are now wealthy. When I interviewed Thompson about the film last year for a book I was writing about 80s films, she recalled how horrified Glover and Eric Stoltz – who was originally cast as Marty before being replaced by Michael J Fox – were by the inference that money equals happiness.
When I mention this to Glover, he bristles at the idea that Stoltz raised objections: “I never saw him say anything about it, I tend to think that may not be accurate.” But he quickly focuses on the source of his real ire: the film’s writer and producer, Bob Gale.
"The film was basically completed"
and yet no other source has ever said this? lmao