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Why Michael J. Fox Replaced Back to the Future's Original Star, Eric Stoltz
"Eric is a brilliant actor. I simply miscast him and I learned a very serious lesson,” recalled director Robert Zemeckis.
The Back to the Future franchise (now streaming on Peacock) is all about little changes in history that drastically affect the present. Perhaps fittingly, the original 1985 film that kicked off the iconic trilogy was almost quite different until director Robert Zemeckis made a change.
When Back to the Future started filming, Marty McFly was played not by Michael J. Fox, but by Eric Stoltz. Who knows how different the present day might’ve been had Zemeckis not replaced his lead actor after more than a month’s worth of filming?
Zemeckis had a good reason for replacing Stoltz. He and his co-writer on Back to the Future, Bob Gale, had eyed Fox for the role of Marty from the start. However, Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal Pictures at the time, urged the duo to cast Stoltz. The young actor had just starred in Mask and Sheinberg had been very impressed with his performance as Rocky Dennis in the biopic. The studio head got his way and production began in late 1984. In theory, it wasn’t a bad casting decision. Stoltz was a talented actor. The problem was that his vibe did not match the fun comedy that Zemeckis and Gale were trying to make.
Why Eric Stoltz was miscast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future
Many of the problems with Stoltz are documented in the book We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy, by Caseen Gaines. Stoltz fancied himself a serious actor, and his style of method acting did not match the tone of Back to the Future.
"Eric had such an intensity. He saw drama in things. He wasn’t really a comedian, and they needed a comedian,” co-star Lea Thompson says in the book. “He’s super-funny in real life, but he didn’t approach his work like that, and they really needed somebody who had those chops.”
Actor Christopher Lloyd, who played Doc Brown, concurred with Thompson. “I felt for Eric. He was a really good actor. Although he was doing the part well, he was not bringing that element of comedy to the screen.”
There were other issues, too. As he had done while filming Mask, Stotlz insisted on only being called by his character’s name, never “Eric.” He was also a little overzealous, and We Don’t Need Roads recounts an incident where he refused to hold back during a scene where Marty and Biff get into a shoving match. Although Biff actor Thomas F. Wilson asked Stotlz to take it easy, Stotlz supposedly shoved with his full force in take after take, leaving Wilson’s collarbones bruised.
After more than a month of this, Zemeckis and Gale realized their lead actor wasn’t working. They spoke with Sheinberg, who agreed and let them replace Stoltz with Fox and reshoot the necessary scenes. One problem, according to We Don’t Need Roads: Although Sheinberg consented, the change couldn’t be made right away, leading to some awkward days of shooting where Stoltz didn’t yet know he was about to be replaced.
"There were signs, especially the last week or so,” director of photography Dean Cundey, recalls in the book. “When we would set up a shot and we would shoot Chris Lloyd’s angle, but we wouldn’t do the reverse on Marty, I’d say, ‘Don’t we need the angle?’ and Bob would say, ‘No, no, no, let’s not worry about that.’”
When Robert Zemeckis told Eric Stoltz he was being replaced with Michael J. Fox on Back to the Future
On January 10, 1985, the deal to replace Stotlz with Fox became official, and Zemeckis personally broke the news to Stoltz — who was understandably devastated. When the director informed the rest of the cast and crew, though, word of Fox’s casting was regarded as “good news.”
In an interview with George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC many years later, Zemeckis called having to fire Stotlz as “the worst experience of my career.”
"Eric is a brilliant actor. I simply miscast him and I learned a very serious lesson,” he said. “It’s not worth it. it’s too painful for everybody. What you have to do is cast the movie the right way and feel really right about it.”
Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox, is now streaming on Peacock alongside Back to the Future Part II, and Back to the Future Part III.
