There are many ways the iconic time blockbuster Back to the Future could have turned out to be a very different movie. Writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s vision for Marty and Doc’s story was revised several times when they began to work with Universal Pitcures and executive producer Steven Speilberg. Zemeckis and Gale were loath to let go of some things, and successfully held on to others, but the final result still became a beloved cinematic adventure.
Several stoylines that would have changed the tone of Back to the Future’s story were abandoned, including finer details about how the time machine works. Additionally, the Back to the Future cast could have included different actors than the major celebrities who are now inseparable from the movie in people’s minds. Yet these last-minute casting and story changes turned out to not be disadvantages, but vital components in making the movie a success.
11 Michael J. Fox Almost Didn’t Play Marty McFly
Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty.
Michael J. Fox was the first choice to play Marty McFly, who was originally given the less catchy name of Marty McDermott. However, Fox was committed to Family Ties at the time, and it did not seem likely that his schedule would allow for the movie. Part of Back to the Future was shot with Eric Stoltz, but it became apparent that he was not right for the role.
So Back to the Future circled back around to Fox. The producers managed to work out a deal with the Family Ties producers so Fox could play Marty. Fox is now invariably associated with his charming performance as Marty McFly. The status of several actors and Back to the Future itself would be very different if Fox had remained unavailable – or if the producers had said, “Well, let’s make the best of this,” and forged ahead with Stoltz.
10 Christopher Lloyd Initially Turned Down The Role Of Doc
Lloyd was persuaded to star in Back to the Future by the director.
John Lithgow and Mark Mothersbaugh were both candidates for the eccentric but brilliant Dr. Emmett Brown, but both turned down the role for one reason or another. While Lithgow and Mothersbaugh would have each brought a unique take on Doc to the Back to the Future movies, Christopher Lloyd’s frenzied performance was exactly what the franchise needed. When Lloyd first received the same offer, he also turned it down. Zemeckis, who became the director of Back to the Future, met with Lloyd and convinced him to accept the role.
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9 Marty Was Supposed To Drive Through A Nuclear Test Site
Marty’s return to the present was going to be powered by a nuclear bomb.
The famous clock tower was originally not going to play a part in Marty’s quest to get back to the future. His trip was supposed to be made possible by a nuclear bomb. After Doc and Marty locate a nuclear test site, Marty, wearing a radiation suit, would drive through the site as a nuclear bomb went off to power the DeLorean and jump back to 1985. However, this idea was deemed too expensive and scrapped (via The Sun).
The nuclear test site concept leans more into the Cold War setting of the 1950s and 1980s, which is still alluded to in the movie (Doc is a nuclear physicist). However, this plot element might have proved distracting and unnecessarily dark. Additionally, Back to the Future’s clock tower contributed to what is now a staple of time-travel storylines, where a seemingly irrelevant detail in the present becomes essential to the protagonist when they get stuck in the past.
8 The Time Machine Was Powered By Coca-Cola
A different fuel source for the time machine also would have changed how Marty gets home.
In a discarded draft of the script, the DeLorean time machine was powered by Coca-Cola. This was probably intended to be an amusing detail, but it doesn’t make any sense at all. Jon Cryer revealed (via X) that the Coca-Cola fuel element was still in place when he read the script and auditioned for the movie. At this time, the script also still included a nuclear bomb. Back to the Future already has plenty of comical elements, and the decision to base the DeLorean time machine’s mechanics on something closer to real science was the right one.
7 Doc Originally Had A Pet Chimp
The chimp was replaced by Doc’s dog Einstein.
According to The Movies that Made Us, Doc originally had a pet chimp called Shemp instead of a dog called Einstein. Universal executive Sid Sheinberg stepped in, claiming that movies with chimps in them are never good. Zemeckis and Gale argued for the inclusion of the chimp, but Sheinberg thankfully won out. Doc’s chimp sidekick would have been a distracting part of the story that did not serve the overall plot at all. Doc having a dog who is the movie’s first-time traveler is more tasteful.
6 Back To The Future Could Have Had A Different Score
Spielberg wasn’t sure about Alan Silvestri writing the score.
Back to the Future also boasts an incredibly famous score. However, Spielberg initially believed that composer Alan Silvestri would not be able to write the score the movie needed (via AlltheRightMovies). Zemeckis worked with Silvestri on Romancing the Stone, the score of which Spielber did not like. Spielberg then heard a musical sample for Back to the Future without knowing it was Silvestri’s and loved it. Zemeckis was able to change Spielberg’s mind about the composer, who went on to write the movie’s memorable score. It is now impossible to imagine Back to the Future without it.
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5 Marty Erases Rock And Roll From History
Marty tells the band to never play the song again, and changes music history.
Marty’s rock and roll performance at a high school dance in the 1950s doesn’t seem to have any consequences besides leaving the audience silently stunned, and the paradoxical implications that Chuck Berry was inspired by his own hit “Johnny B. Goode.” However, Marty was supposed to unintentionally erase rock and roll from history after telling the band at the dance to never play “Blue Suede Shoes” again. In this version, when Marty returns to 1985, he finds out that the rock movement never took off.
However, Back to the Future is an entertaining movie because Marty and Doc never change the past in any way they can’t fix. CinemaBlend does not suggest that a storyline about Marty trying to fix his mistake would have happened. Therefore, this storyline would have been superfluous and likely played as a bad joke.
4 Marty Uses The Sports Almanac To Get Rich (Like Biff Does In Part II)
A central plot point of Back to the Future Part II originally appeared in the first movie.
The idea to take an almanac of athletic wins from several decades back to the present did come from Marty in Back to the Future Part II, with old Biff overhearing him. In an early version of the script for the first movie, Marty was going to do this himself (CinemaBlend). This might have been executed in the same spirit of how the McFly family has more money at the end of the first movie as a result of Marty traveling through time.
However, Marty accomplishes this by accident and depicting him as too concerned with money may have made him unlikable. Doc is notably disgusted by Marty’s almanac idea in Back to the Future Part II. He bluntly tells Marty: “I didn’t invent the time machine to win at gambling. I invented the time machine to travel through time.”
3 Back To The Future Could Have Had A Different Title
A Universal executive wanted to call the movie “Space Man from Pluto.”
Sheinberg might have been right about the chimp, but he is infamous among Back to the Future fans for proposing an awful alternate title. Zemeckis and Gale always wanted to call their movie Back to the Future, but Sheinberg proposed calling it Space Man from Pluto. Luckily, Spielberg stepped in and vouched for Back to the Future. The somewhat roundabout phrase perfectly captures the movie and results in a dramatically amazing title drop. Even if the movie had been successful, people would probably still have been making fun of the Space Man from Pluto title today.
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2 The Time Machine Wasn’t Always A DeLorean
There were several ideas for the form Doc’s time machine would take.
There were multiple iterations of Doc’s time machine before the writers landed on a car. At one point, they considered making the time machine a refrigerator (between this and the nuclear test sight, Back to the Future came dangerously close to the ridicule of Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). However, there was concern about children trying to climb into their fridge at home and getting trapped (via Far Out). The time machine became the iconic DeLorean, which is campy but still convenient for the main characters.
1 Back To The Future Had A Different Ending
The first movie originally did not end with Marty and Doc’s next adventure.
Zemeckis admitted that if he had known they would be making a sequel, he would not have put Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer in the DeLorean in the first Back to the Future’s ending. The last scene was intended to be an open-ended promise of more adventures in the characters’ future – plus a reprise of the title drop. However, even this was not the original ending. George McFly was supposed to find a newspaper from 1955 featuring a picture of his son, leaving him bewildered. Yet this and other elements being altered changed Back to the Future for the better.
