Back To The Future! 1985's sci-fi comedy classic
“Back to the Future” — about a wacky scientist who builds a time machine from a DeLorean car and his teenage friend who travels 30 years back in time and is horrified when he meets his parents — opened in theaters July 3, 1985 — 40 years ago Thursday.
Or did it? Perhaps the movie was filmed 20 years from now and director Robert Zemeckis sent it back in time to 1985 ...
A Long Road To Approval
Not long after he finished his first collaboration with Robert Zemeckis — the 1980 comedy “Used Cars” — filmmaker Bob Gale was looking through his father’s old high school yearbook and wondered what it would have been like to meet his parents when they were younger.
Robert Zemeckis, left, and Bob Gale
He and Zemeckis began working on a fun time-travel story. Zemeckis beefed up the plot by writing the star of the film is accidentally sent back in time, where his mom falls for him.
They began shopping their script around Hollywood but were rejected 44 times: Many studios were looking for more “raunch,” which was typical for teen comedies in the 1980s. Disney, however, turned down the project because of the way the main character’s mother keeps trying to fire up a romance with him. In other words: that was too much “raunch” for Disney.
Zemeckis asked his pal Steven Spielberg for advice. Spielberg told him his problem was that Zemeckis had only directed two films, and neither were hits. He suggested Zemeckis take on a “work for hire” job directing one more movie to gain the respect of studios.
That film was “Romancing the Stone” with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, and it did the trick. Universal Pictures green-lit the film but began asking for a number of changes. The wacky scientist in the script has a pet chimp named Shemp. No film with a chimp made money, the studio chief said. That was changed to a dog named Einstein.
Also, that same executive said, time travel movies don’t make money. He asked Gale and Zemeckis to change the title to “Space Man from Pluto.” Zemeckis showed the memo to Spielberg who wrote the executive, complimenting him for his clearly humorous suggestions. That stopped the executive from giving more input.
Other plot points changed as the project evolved. At one point, the time machine was powered by Cola-Cola. At another, the star of the movie climbs into a refrigerator and is placed at the center of an atomic bomb test to return to 1985.
Zemeckis and Gale didn’t want kids climbing into refrigerators, so they changed that. Spielberg, of all people, would use that idea in his 2008 Indiana Jones sequel.
Films Directed By Robert Zemeckis
The Making Of 'Back To The Future'
In the original script, Marty McFly is a video pirate who sells bootlegged videos of recent big-budget hits like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Superman” in order to raise money to fund Doc Brown’s time machine. Not surprisingly, Universal Studios executives didn’t like that.
Michael J. Fox was the top choice to play Marty but was tied up with his TV series, “Family Ties.” Also considered for the role: Johnny Depp, Ralph Macchio, John Cusack, Corey Hart and Charlie Sheen. Eric Stoltz was hired but didn’t really fit in. He was let go 34 days into filming. Fox was hired but had to work long hours on both the film and his TV show.
Lea Thompson was hired to play Marty’s mom, Lorraine, because she had worked on “The Wild Life” with Eric Stoltz. She was kept on after he was fired. Fox was 10 days younger than Thompson and nearly three years older than Crispin Glover, who played his dad. Fox came up with Lorraine’s line about his missing pants: “Over there ... on my hope chest.”
John Lithgow was the first choice to play Doc Brown but he turned down the role because of a scheduling conflict. Christopher Lloyd was a close second choice. Also on producers’ short list: Dudley Moore, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Gross, Jeff Goldblum, James Woods, Gene Wilder and Dick Van Dyke.
When Marty takes the stage at the dance, he tells the band to play a “blues riff” in key of B. Actually, what gets played is in B flat. Fox’s singing was dubbed in by a vocalist who was not cited in the movie’s end credits. In the original script, Marty’s guitar playing causes a riot at the dance. When he gets back to 1985, he discovers rock and roll was never invented.
Zemeckis and Gale considered refrigerators and concrete boxes to serve as the time machine but settled on a DeLorean because its gull-wing doors looked futuristic and would play off the idea that Marty might be alien. Three DeLorians were used in filming. John DeLorean sent Gale and Zemeckis a letter thanking them for immortalizing his car.
There are only 32 visual effects shots in the entire film. For the time travel effect, gasoline was poured into a straight line and then set on fire. The film of flames rushing along was then sped up. “Nowadays, it would all be digital,” said the movie’s director of photography, Dean Cundey. ”No way would you have fire and speeding cars around the stars.”
“Back to the Future” spent 11 weeks at the nation’s top selling film. It would be nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay, and would win for Best Sound Effects Editing. The film would be followed by two sequels, a Saturday morning cartoon series and a themed ride at Universal Studios theme park in California.
