Weekend Comparison: Back to the Futures
Poll Weekend Comparison: Back to the Futures
Trivia - Part 1: Michael J. Fox had always been the first choice for Marty, but he was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts with his work on "Family Ties" (1982). As "Family Ties" co-star Meredith Baxter was pregnant at the time, Fox was carrying a lot more of the show than usual. The show's producer Gary David Goldberg simply couldn't afford to let Fox go. Zemeckis and Gale then cast Eric Stolz as Marty based on his performance in Mask (1985). After four weeks of filming Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale felt that Stolz wasn't right for the part and Stolz agreed. By this stage, Baxter was back fully on the show and Goldberg agreed to let Fox go off to make the film. Fox worked out a schedule to fulfill his commitment to both projects. Every day during production, he drove straight to the movie set after taping of the show was finished every day and averaged about five hours of sleep. The bulk of the production was filmed from 6pm to 6am, with the daylight scenes filmed on weekends. Reshooting Stoltz's scenes added $3 million dollars to the budget.
Trivia - Part II: In this movie there is a scene in which Doc Brown holds a conversation with his 1955 counterpart (who is unaware of who he is talking to). During this scene Doc is wearing a brown trench coat and hat. If you look carefully in the first movie, you can see a man dressed exactly like this (and therefore, presumably Doc) walking away shortly before the clock-tower scene. In the DVD commentary it is explained that this was not intentional, as the script for the second movie hadn't even been written at the time that they filmed the first one.
Trivia - Part III: According to the book "Billy Gibbon: Rock & Roll Gearhead", ZZ Top was hanging around the set and was asked to be the town band. During one take, the camera broke. While waiting for the camera to be repaired, Michael J. Fox asked if they would play "Hey Good Lookin'" which they did. Afterwards, more requests were played. Two hours later, someone inquired if the camera had been repaired. The director replied that it had been fixed for quite a while, he just didn't want to stop the party that had evolved.