10 Facts You Never Knew About ‘Back To The Future’
Wednesday, October 21, 2015, fans everywhere celebrated Back to the Future Day, a day that’s been anticipated for the last 30 years. Unfortunately, the Cubs didn’t make it to the World Series, every kid on the block doesn’t have a hover board (it’s far too expensive), and self-lacing shoes aren’t in stores yet, though Nike has developed a working pair. Still, imagining the future in that sense was fun while it lasted. Now, let’s take a closer look at some facts from Back to the Future that you never knew.
1. Biff’s character is actually based on Donald Trump. You may have suspected it for years, but co-screenwriter Bob Gale finally admitted to the Daily Beast that The Donald played a large part in defining Biff’s character.
“You watch Part II again and there’s a scene where Marty confronts Biff in his office and there’s a huge portrait of Biff on the wall behind Biff, and there’s one moment where Biff kind of stands up and he takes exactly the same pose as the portrait? Yeah,” Gale explained.
2. The DeLorean was almost a refrigerator. Some of the earlier drafts had Doc Brown and Marty McFly squeezing into a refrigerator to travel through time rather than the now iconic DeLorean.
3. The Back to the Future script was rejected 40 times before Universal Studios accepted it. The writers submitted the script to Disney, but they rejected it saying that the movie was about incest since there’s a scene where Marty and his mom kiss. Disney and the other 39 companies that rejected the script probably feel pretty dumb now.
4. Eric Stoltz started out as Mary McFly. But he was fired because he couldn’t give the character the comedic air the filmmakers wanted. Thankfully, they were able to make the schedule work so that Michael J. Fox could perform in both the film and Family Ties.
5. Ronald Reagan adored the film. Fans might remember the comedic line in which Doc shares his disbelief that Reagan is president in 1985: “The actor? Who’s the vice president? Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman [Reagans’ first wife] is first lady!” He also quoted Christopher Lloyd’s famous line “roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads” in his 1986 State of the Union address.
6. The Twin Pines Mall becomes the Lone Pine Mall at the end of the film. Those who have combed the movie looking for bloopers and Easter eggs will have noticed that the mall’s name changed. This is in reference to the pine tree Marty takes out on Ol’ Man Peabody’s farm while speeding through 1955.
7. Mark Campbell, the singer of Johnny B. Goode in the first two movies, went uncredited. The makers wanted viewers to think that Michael J. Fox was actually singing the song. A pretty far-fetched idea since it was obviously not his voice, but Campbell was given a special thanks later on.
8. The lightning strike scene in the first film happens in real time. It feels a lot longer because of the tension, but from the time Marty meets Doc at 9:56 p.m. to the time the lightning strikes at 10:04 p.m. is nine and a half minutes. No wonder it was so intense!
9. The second film was the least liked of all the films. On Rotten Tomatoes, it scored only 61 percent on the Tomatometer while the first film scored 96 percent and the third 73 percent. That’s a pretty underrated rating if you ask me.
10. Back to the Future grossed $492 million in the box office by today’s standards. At the time, it only made $210 million, but that number is adjusted for inflation. It was also the slowest movie ever to make it to the $200 million in the box office, although it was the number one movie in 1985. Not a bad start at all for the Back to the Future trilogy.
[Image via Ilya S. Savenok]
