Contrary to reputation as one of the most beloved films of the 1980’s, Back to the Future was reportedly a fucking nightmare behind the scenes. With the sticky finger of blame being pointed squarely at actor Crispin Glover who was apparently such an gargantuan wang behind the scenes, they wrote scenes into the sequel that would give them an excuse to torture him and then made another actor wear his face when he was ultimately recast.
For anyone unfamiliar with the infamously laborious production of Back to the Future, the film was plagued by issues largely caused by two actors, the aforementioned Crispin Glover and Eric Stoltz. With the latter reportedly fired so early into production that co-star Christopher Lloyd once responded “Eric, who?” when asked about Stoltz’ brief stint as Marty McFly. A jab that’s even more precision-guided to the dick of Stoltz’ ego when you consider the two men filmed like half a dozen scenes together.
In Stoltz’ defense the reason he was fired is because he took the role way too seriously, reportedly insisting that everyone call him “Marty” between takes and constantly arguing with producers about the film’s tone and ending. With Stoltz insisting that Back to the Future’s ending was actually bleak as fuck because it basically saw Marty returning to a timeline where he’s a stranger to his own family. Which, well, we can’t really argue with because that is basically what happens.
This said, some shots of Stoltz did make it into the final film, like the shot of Biff getting his shit rocked is apparently Stoltz and according to a persistent industry rumour, was left in the film because Stoltz socked the actor on the jaw for real. You know, because method acting.
As for Glover, he was also a huge pain in the anus, arguing endlessly with producers over the slightest little thing his character did to the point he supposedly spent hours throwing a tantrum over the way he was being asked to walk through a door. He also frequently forgot his lines so much that they just up and fixed that shit in post by having Glover re-record everything his character was supposed to say and then dubbing over his performance in the film.
But we’re not done yet because after the film was released, was a big hit and a sequel was greenlit, Glover refused to appear in it unless they gave him $1 million. Which they weren’t exactly keen on doing since he’d personally added tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to the first film’s budget with his, let’s call them, shenanigans.
In fact, Glover was such a prick to pretty much everyone on set that the writers specifically wrote scenes into the sequel where they’d have an excuse to fuck with him. Which is why in the sequel this happens to his character.
The thing is, that’s not Glover, it’s another actor they brought in to replace him who is, quite literally, wearing Glover’s face.
To explain, due to Glover’s characterful face, they had a hard time casting someone who looked like him. So much so they eventually gave up and just cast a guy called Jeffrey Weissman who they slapped about 9 pounds of makeup on to make him look like Glover. So where does wearing Glover’s face come into this? Well in addition to make-up Weissman wore a bunch of facial prosthetics taken from molds of Glover’s actual face. Something he was understandably pissed about, successfully suing the everloving fuck out of Universal Pictures for using his likeness without permission.
A court case that is actually more relevant than ever, with Glover’s lawyers showing a remarkable amount of foresight about the future of Hollywood. Sagely noting that –
Things may happen in the future that will make this important.
And you know what, as much as asshole Glover was, he had a good fucking point.
