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It's no secret that there were several re-castings throughout the Back to the Future franchise. Though the firing of Crispin Glover who played George McFly started a conversation around an actors likeness that was still being fought over during the 2023 SAG Strike. Re-casting George McFly is one thing, but using prosthetics and makeup to make another actor look like Crispin Glover in Back to the Future 2 was a step too far. But why exactly did George McFly get fired from Back to the Future?
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What happened to Grandpa? Oh, he threw his back out again. How's Granddad's little pumpkin? How did
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you do that? How did he do that? Oh, out on the golf course. Actually, what happened to Grandpa
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was a little bit more complicated than just some golfing mishap. In fact, even though that guy kind
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of looks and sounds like George McFly, beneath all that old age makeup, it's not really him
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Or at least it's not Crispin Glover, the actor who played the now iconic character in the 1985
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classic Back to the Future. So what happened? Beloved by audiences and well-reviewed
0:37
the Robert Zemeckis directed Back to the Future was number one at the box office for 11 of its
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first 12 weeks of release and finished its run as the highest grossing film of the year. So it
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came as no surprise to anyone when a pair of sequels were announced. Back to the Future 2 and
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three were shot back to back and were both well-received box office successes. For anyone
0:57
not reading the credits too closely, they seemed to reunite the entire principal cast of the
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original film. But the truth was, that scene where old George explains his back went out wasn't just
1:08
making a joke about chiropractic treatments of the future. It was attempting to conceal the fact
1:13
that Crispin Glover had been replaced by another actor. Please, no, I cannot be fired. I'm fired
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According to Back to the Future screenwriter Bob Gale, Glover was uninterested in making the sequels
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and demanded to be paid the same amount as franchise star Michael J. Fox
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The studio refused and George had to be recast. The story is disputed by Glover himself, though, who insists he asked to be paid the same amount as Leah Thompson and Tom Wilson
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but was only offered half of what they were getting. Glover does, however, freely admit that during the making of the first movie
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he had moral reservations about the ending of the story You guys look great Mom you look so thin Thank you Marty George To quickly recap at the end of Back to the Future
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Marty McFly returned home from 1955 to find that he didn't quite put the timeline back
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the way it was. His father, previously a cowardly nerd stuck in a dead-end job
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is now confident and successful. His mother, once a depressed, overweight alcoholic
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is now sober and thin. Their relationship, once sad and shrill, was now loving and idyllic
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The family was also now apparently much better off financially. Glover felt the ending was crassly materialistic
2:27
and he took those concerns up with Zemeckis. In the actor's own words, It was not a good idea for our characters to have a monetary reward
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It basically makes the moral of the film that money equals happiness
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Adding, the love should be the reward. He's talking about the love between George and Lorraine
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Your mileage may vary on whether or not you agree with the actor's vision of the ending
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but he claims that he got at least some unspecified elements to which he objected removed from the script
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The director, however, didn't appreciate being questioned on the matter. In fact, according to Glover
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Zemeckis got really mad at me when I said this. Nonetheless, Glover was willing to do the sequels, but no financial arrangement could be reached
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Faced with the prospect of doing the movies without him, the storyline about an alternate 1985 where George was dead was created to minimize his role
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and the part was recast with actor Jeffrey Weissman. But the recasting was complicated by the fact that the plot of Back to the Future 2
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had Doc and Marty returning to 1955 in a storyline that ran parallel to the events of the original movie
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There are now two of me here, and there are two of you here, so you must be very careful not to run into your other self
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The filmmaker's plan was to mix footage from the first film with new footage that showed the action from a different perspective
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But to do that George would have to look like Crispin Glover so that the footage would match This would be accomplished by disguising Weissman who had a similar build to Glover using prosthetics made from molds of Glover face left over from the old age makeup he wore in the original film
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I was originally told that I was just going to be the photo double, and then slowly but surely after makeup prosthetics, I became actually George
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But the stunt didn't go over too well with Glover's former co-stars, and Weissman himself would later recall
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When I first came on set as a young 17-year-old George, made up in prosthetics to look like Crispin
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Michael J. Fox looked at me and said, Oh man, Crispin's not gonna like this
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Fox was right, and Glover was indeed furious about how he felt the producers had fooled audiences
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into thinking he was in the sequel. Even to this day, people still think I'm in that movie
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It still really is, it's endlessly aggravating. Not helping matters was that Glover didn't think
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Weissman's performance as George was particularly good, and he hates it when fans think it was him
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In 1990, Glover took legal action and sued Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, among others
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He alleged that the producers violated his rights of publicity and stole the unique and distinctive likeness and voice
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that have won him roles in numerous motion pictures. It was an allegation that was completely confirmed by Weissman himself
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who later admitted that his presence in the movie was kept a secret so as not to call attention to the mistake the producers made
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in trying to use Crispin's likeness without paying him. He called me after part three came out and said, you know, what they did to me was unfair
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And I said, yeah, I think so, too. The studio, for their part, argued that they weren't trying to steal Glover's likeness
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but rather were attempting to protect the visual continuity of the character of George McFly
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Considering the exact same movies replaced Claudia Wells with Elizabeth Shue without making any efforts to similarly disguise her with prosthetics
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it was a weak defense at best. What did you bring her for? Don't worry, she's not essential to my plan
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The company ensuring Universal decided to settle the lawsuit for a reported And while Glover would eventually patch things up with the director even appearing in his 2007 CGI take on Beowulf the actor still
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apparently holds a grudge against the screenwriter, feeling Gale lied about him to the press too often
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and refused to take any responsibility for the situation. Gale, for his part, denies any wrongdoing
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and claims not to understand why he's being singled out for blame among the producers
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There's this producer, Bob Gale, co-writer, who's made up new lies on these Blu-rays
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Due to his feelings about Gale, Glover has generally refused to participate in Back to the Future-related events
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But his suit would also have far-reaching repercussions in the entertainment industry at large
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The Screen Actors Guild, for example, was motivated to negotiate new standard union protections for an artist's right of publicity
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which they define as an intellectual property right that vests in the artist and their heirs
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in order to protect their use of their likeness. Glover's case influenced such intellectual property
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rights in Hollywood for decades to come and prefigured many of the issues now facing actors
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in connection with the rapidly increasing use of CGI and artificial intelligence
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New technologies capable of digitally creating simulated performances put every actor in every
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role in danger of being George McFly. It's a fact that's not lost on the union and was a driving
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factor in 2023's actor strike. The digital age is cannibalizing us. As filmgoers, it should really
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give us all pause to reflect on what kind of cinematic world we want to live in. George McFly
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was, in many ways, the heart and soul of the original Back to the Future, and that was thanks
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to the choices Crispin Glover made as a performer. What he brought to the role couldn't be replicated
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even just for brief moments by a double. Yes, the digital doubles of today are near-perfect dead ringers for the actors they replace
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but when it comes to performances, they're really no different than any other soulless puppet
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hanging upside down from a levitating chiropractic device
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