The actor and his “Future Boy” co-author, Nelle Fortenberry, recount to EW the plot to paper over the Fox-Stoltz swap a staggering 6 weeks into production.

How Back to the Future tried to hide Michael J. Fox replacing Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly: ‘Just a hot mess’

The actor and his "Future Boy" co-author, Nelle Fortenberry, recount to EW the plot to paper over the Fox-Stoltz swap a staggering 6 weeks into production.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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October 27, 2025 2:33 p.m. ET

Michael J. Fox in 'Back to the Future'. Credit:

In 1985, we went *Back to the Future*, but a stunning mid-production recast nearly took the film back to the cutting room floor.

Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry, the co-authors of Fox's new memoir of the making of the sci-fi comedy classic, *Future Boy*, speak with * *on the occasion of the film's 40th anniversary, which is being celebrated with a theatrical re-release and a jam-packed new 4K trilogy Steelbook.

Much has been made in the decades since the movie's release of Fox replacing Eric Stoltz in the lead role of Marty McFly a staggering six weeks into production. But a hop in the DeLorean back to 1985 would find the *Back to the Future *team doing whatever they could to make as little of the unconventional recast as possible.

"I didn't have time to think about it," Fox tells EW. Only 24 at the time, the rising Canadian star had agreed to simultaneously shoot *Back to the Future*, his first leading role in a major film, and the third season of *Family Ties*, the sitcom that put him on the map. "I don't think the public were aware of it until we were doing it. I was rushed on it, six weeks in, and I had no kind of time talk about it."**

Michael J. Fox and Eric Stoltz.

Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic; Matthew Eisman/Getty

Fortenberry notes that all the "time with [*Future *co-writer] Bob Gale and [*Future *co-writer and director] Robert Zemeckis and the whole crew getting ready for the book, researching the book," led to plenty of discussions on the anxious effort to keep the Fox-Stoltz swap under wraps.

"They managed to keep the fact that Eric had left the movie and Michael was coming on the movie a secret until Michael started," she continues. But a headline in a major trade paper ultimately arrived, "announcing that it had taken place, and it called the movie 'troubled.' 'The troubled production of *Back to the Future*.' So I think a lot of people in the business thought, 'Oh, this must be a mess. This is just a hot mess, this movie.'"********

Fox laughs when he recalls this testament to just how rapidly he was rushed into production on *Back to the Future:* "The first time I saw [Christopher Lloyd] was when he jumped out the van. I hadn't talked to him, had never spoken to him about my character. Luckily, he jumped out and did this thing I thought, 'Holy s---, it's going to be great. He's crazy.'"**

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The eventual star of two wildly successful *Back to the Future *sequels says it was the same with costars Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson. "They all had shot for six weeks. So they had stuff in the can where they had been acting with [another] actor. I had no past with it. I had no history with it, but I just jumped in and did it."

However tough it was at first, Fox says the production experience soon became "really sweet, particularly with Lea, because she was so fantastic. She was so sweet and so good, just magical."

Fox is able to recall the moments around his hiring and Stoltz's departure with granular detail in *Future Boy*. "Until my deal was locked in, Bob Zemeckis and his cowriter and producer, Bob Gale, continued filming with Eric Stoltz, who was unaware of the impending change. [Producer Steven Spielberg] was afraid that if they let him go prematurely and production shut down, the whole film could implode. Universal needed assurance that a plan was in place for a seamless transition to a new lead actor," he wrote.**

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Zemeckis finally had the hard conversation with Stoltz in early January. The cast was "shaken" by the news, Fox recalled, but ultimately understood when they saw what a tone shift he was able to induce as the new Marty McFly.

"The thing that Eric did was just a different take," Fox tells EW. "It had a little more Shakespeare, a little more tragedy. And I was doing all that I had in my wheelhouse, I didn't have that tragedy. So I played what I knew."

Fox's plucky and lighthearted take on Marty McFly immediately impressed Zemeckis, Gale, and Spielberg - and in turn won over the film a legion of loyal fans.

After 40 years, Fox and Stoltz have formed a friendship, too. "What transpired on *Back to the Future* had not made us enemies or fated rivals; we were just two dedicated actors who had poured equal amounts of energy into the same role," Fox revealed in *Future Boy*. "The rest had nothing to do with us. As it turned out, we had much more in common than our spin as Marty."

*Back to the Future* returns to theaters on Friday, Oct. 31.

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Source: “EW Movies”