Eric Stoltz almost went BACK TO THE FUTURE in a time traveling fridge
Friday, October 23, 2009
Stoltz was hired as the film's leading man, and apparently the shoot was pretty far along before director Robert Zemeckis decided that Stoltz just wasn't working in the role. By various accounts Stoltz was "too serious" as Marty McFly, and wasn't clicking right with Christopher Lloyd. For reasons unknown, the footage of Stoltz as Marty is hard to find; it doesn't seem to be online at all, and I don't think it's been on any of the video or DVD releases. Even this short TV piece about Stoltz's firing from the film only uses still photos.
This is a total guess on my part, but maybe Stoltz was disgruntled about being dropped from the picture and didn't sign off on his footage being used. In any case, there's definitely something weird going on here. A lot of Back to the Future fans would like to see that footage, but it's been locked up in a vault somewhere for over a quarter of a century.
There's one more odd little detail about Stoltz's involvement with Back to the Future, and it's something I've never heard anybody else mention.
Just recently I finally caught up with the pilot episode of Caprica on DVD (say what you wanna say about how Ron Moore ends a series, but the guy sure knows how to start them) and I noticed for the first time how much Stoltz looks like Michael J. Fox. It's kind of uncanny once you see it, Stoltz could be Fox's taller, redheaded brother. I'm assuming that when the producers of Back to the Future fired Stoltz, they didn't deliberately set out to find a replacement who looked just like a shorter, darker haired version of him. Although apparently the resemblance did come in handy; I've heard that a few of Stoltz's long shots actually made into the finished film. The resemblance is strong enough that from 15 or 20 feet back, they could pass off Stoltz as Fox.
Doc Brown's Delorean was originally supposed to be a fridge, and the closing sequence - which got as far as being storyboarded - involved Marty harnessing the energy of an A-bomb test to blast himself back to the future. But executive producer Steven Spielberg was worried about kids imitating Marty and locking themselves in fridges, so it was changed to the souped-up Delorean. (Note that that /Film link features an embedded video of concept artist Andrew Probert doing a storyboard walkthrough of the film's original ending. But don't get your hopes up; the footage is no longer available.)
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2 comments:
I read an interview with Christopher Lloyd where he said he had no idea why Stolz was fired and thought he was doing a great job. I'll bet there's more to this story that meets the eye.
It wasn't so much a case of Stoltz not working for the role (although his performance has been listed by some sources as being too "serious" and "intense" for the more comedic character of Marty McFly), but rather Stoltz was the second choice. Fox originally couldn't do the film because of scheduling conflicts with "Family Ties" so they cast Stoltz & filmed about 80% of the movie, then when Fox became available Zemeckis snapped him up, recast the part & essentially reshot the film. Even though I can't see anyone else but MJF playing McFly now, I still think Stoltz got a raw deal on BTTF.
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