Robert Zemeckis Discusses Casting and Firing Eric Stoltz in BACK TO THE FUTURE
As many of you already know, Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, and then was famously fired after a few weeks of shooting because he wasn't right for the part.
Director Robert Zemeckis hasn't really talked much about the events that took place surrounding the Stoltz drama, but in a recent interview for the upcoming Back to the Future documentary, Back in Time, he opens up about it. EW has a clip from the doc that you can watch below.
The filmmaker discusses why cast Stoltz in the first place, and also why he ultimately had to fire and replace him. Universal Pictures is the reason that he was cast in the film. They pushed for Zemeckis to cast the actor after seeing the movie Mask, but the director never felt like he was the right guy for the job. The studio told Zemeckis that if he didn't Stoltz's performance, he could let him go, and that's exactly what Zemeckis ended up doing. The director says:
“Eric is a really good actor, and I made the decision to put him in the movie, but it turned out that his instincts and the type of the comedy [of] the film we were doing weren’t really gelling."
The filmmaker made the right move. The movie would not have been the hilarious classic that it is today. Thankfully, they were able to cast Michael J. Fox, and work around his schedule with Family Ties to make the movie. Make sure to watch the clip below, and for more information on the story of Stoltz in Back to the Future click here. If you missed the trailer for Back in Time, you can watch it here.