Fox as Mcfly ‘made’ Back to the Future, says man behind classic

The co-creator of Back to the Future has said the film would have never been the success it was if Eric Stoltz had not been replaced by Michael J Fox as Marty Mcfly while the film was already in production.

The Pulp Fiction actor was originally cast in the 1985 classic about a high school pupil who is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time - travelling Delorean, but was dropped after a month of filming.

Writer Bob Gale, who penned the script with director Robert Zemeckis after discovering his own father's high school yearbook, said: “If we had finished the film with Eric Stoltz I don’t think we would be having this conversation today, Michael was that much better.

“He was so perfect, you can't imagine anyone else to be him, although when you see Back to the Future the Musical in London when we open in May or June, you will see Olly Dobson playing Marty Mcfly and you will say, ‘Wow, this kid is great, I totally accept him as Marty’ but Michael J Fox was perfect, it's hard to imagine anybody else as Marty.

“It’s hard to imagine anybody else in any of those key roles really, they grew into their parts thanks to their own talent, thanks to Bob Zemeckis’s directing.”

The film is now 35 years old but Gale said: “So much of it is extremely vivid, it is in a weird way kind of like watching a home movie.”

However, the writer said it would be unlikely the film, which was based on an original idea rather than a pre-existing property, would be made in 2020.