Back To The Future: Behind the Scenes & Facts

Here is a list of behind-the-scenes photos and facts about the movie Back To The Future

The Script Was Rejected 44 Times Before Being Accepted

It’s hard to imagine any movie producer or studio executive receiving the near-perfect screenplay for Back to the Future and not wanting to make it, given what a classic the film has become. But when Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale were first sending out the script, it was rejected 44 times. Almost every major studio wanted nothing to do with it, with Disney reasoning it was too risqué with the storyline of a mother falling for her son and every other studio reasoning it wasn’t risqué enough compared to other contemporary comedies.

Back To The Future

The University of Southern California Film School’s Writing Classes Use The Screenplay For Back To The Future As The Model Of “The Perfect Screenplay”

Back To The Future

The Studio Head Tried To Change The Title To Spaceman From Pluto

Back To The Future

Screenwriter Bob Gale Got The Idea From His Dad’s Yearbook

One day, when screenwriter Bob Gale was between projects, he found himself flicking through his dad’s high school yearbook. This started a train of thought that led Gale to contemplate whether or not he and his dad would’ve been friends if they’d been teenagers going to school at the same time. Gale figured that he’d only be able to know this for sure if he went back in time. This led him to the concept that would eventually grow into Back to the Future. Gale has since maintained that seeing if he’d be friends with his dad as a teenager is what he’d do if he had access to a real-life time machine.

Back To The Future

Test Audiences Didn’t Realize The Movie Was A Comedy

Back To The Future

The End Of The Movie Is Foreshadowed In The Opening Scene

The amount of foreshadowing threaded throughout Back To The Future is astonishing. The script is a masterclass in set up and pay off, and one of the most notable moments comes in the very first scene. The film opens with Marty turning up at Doc’s vacant laboratory. The camera pans slowly around the room, revealing many timepieces that Doc keeps on his wall. One of these has a man hanging from the hands of a clock. This is a double whammy – it depicts a scene from Harold Lloyd’s classic silent-era comedy film, Safety Last! (1923) and also foreshadows the moment where Doc finds himself hanging from the clock tower in the climax of Back To The Future.

Back To The Future

There Are Only About Thirty-Two Visual Effects Shots In The Entire Film

Back To The Future

In The Early Drafts Of Back To The Future, The Time Machine Was Made Out Of An Old Refrigerator

Well, sort of an old refrigerator. “Way back in that second draft, it was going to be a ‘time chamber,’ not unlike a refrigerator, and Doc Brown had to carry it on the back of his truck,” Gale explained.

Back To The Future

Doc Brown Originally Had A Pet Chimpanzee In Back To The Future

Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal, was anti-chimpanzee: “I looked it up,” he told Gale, “no movie with a chimpanzee ever made any money.” “We said, what about those Clint Eastwood movies, Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can,?” Gale and Zemeckis countered. “He said, ‘No, that was an orangutan.’ So, we have a dog.”

Back To The Future

Writers Bob Gale And Robert Zemeckis Actually Received A Fan Letter From John DeLorean After The Film’s Release, Thanking Them For Immortalizing His Car