Latest news with #MichaelJ.Fox
News18
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
Back To the Future Turns 40: Michael J. Fox & Christopher Lloyd Recall Fans' Love
Back to the Future just turned 40, and it's still as loved as ever. The classic time-travel movie first hit theatres on July 3, 1985, and has remained a favourite for people of all ages. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd recently looked back at the film during an anniversary event, sharing how amazed they are that fans continue to connect with the story even after all these years. Watch this video to know more. bollywood news | entertainment news live | latest bollywood news | bollywood | news18 | n18oc_moviesLiked the video? Please press the thumbs up icon and leave a comment. Subscribe to Showsha YouTube channel and never miss a video: Showsha on Instagram: Showsha on Facebook: Showsha on X: Showsha on Snapchat: entertainment and lifestyle news and updates on:
New York Post
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘Back to the Future' turns 40 — and the first actor to play Marty McFly was fired: ‘It was devastating'
Forty years ago, moviegoers were almost shouting, 'Great Stoltz!' That's because 'Back to the Future,' the science-fiction classic that hit theaters on July 3, 1985, nearly starred a very different actor than Michael J. Fox. The poor guy even shot scenes. Advertisement 5 Eric Stoltz was the first actor to play Marty McFly in 'Back to the Future' before being fired and replaced with Michael J. Fox. Paramount Pictures The first man to don the orange puffer vest as unwitting teen time traveler Marty McFly was Eric Stoltz, then the star of 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High,' 'The Wild Life' and 'The New Kids.' But he was ultimately denied the keys to the DeLorean. Advertisement 'The director fired me,' Stoltz, now 63, said in a 1993 interview with Bob Costas. 'He didn't like my work.' The stung actor added, 'It was devastating to me.' From the offset, director Robert Zemeckis, who had notched a hit in 'Romancing the Stone' with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, and producer Steven Spielberg craved Fox for the part. The 23-year-old had turned into a huge national TV star playing precocious Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom 'Family Ties,' which began in 1982. By 1985, it was No. 2 in the Nielsen ratings. Advertisement He was made for Marty. But when 'Ties' creator and showrunner Gary David Goldberg was approached by Spielberg and Zemeckis about Fox doing the film, the TV bigwig was firm. 5 Michael J. Fox was a superstar playing Alex P. Keaton on 'Family Ties.' Getty Images 'He said, 'I can't let him do it,'' Fox recalled in a 2001 interview with the Archive of American Television. Advertisement 'And he said, you know, 'Please don't tell Michael — not that I want him to think I did something behind his back, but I really had no other choice.'' So, the Hollywood duo instead went with another 23-year-old — Stoltz. But, talented though he was, the actor struggled with the funny Californian for more than a month of production. 'Eric had such an intensity. He saw drama in things. He wasn't really a comedian, and they needed a comedian,' co-star Lea Thompson said in the book 'We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy.' 'He's super-funny in real life, but he didn't approach his work like that, and they really needed somebody who had those chops.' 5 Stoltz was a terrific actor, but approached the role of Marty too seriously Getty Images Fox diplomatically agrees. 'There's a certain goofiness to [Marty] that I don't think Eric was really ready to embrace,' he said in 2001. Advertisement 'I think there was a silliness to the role that they kind of pictured me for.' Concerned with 'Future''s future, Zemeckis and Spielberg went back to Goldberg, who finally agreed to let his superstar do the project. Now the bad new had to be broken to Stoltz. On Jan. 10, 1985, Zemeckis axed his leading man. Advertisement 'I was a young actor,' Stoltz recalled to Costas. 'It was probably the worst thing that can happen to you in your career.' In a later interview with George Stephanopolous, the 'Forrest Gump' director felt mutually horrible. He also called the sacking 'the worst experience of my career.' 'Eric is a brilliant actor,' Zemeckis added. 'I simply miscast him and I learned a very serious lesson. It's not worth it. It's too painful for everybody. What you have to do is cast the movie the right way and feel really right about it.' Advertisement 5 Eventually the creator of 'Family Ties' allowed Fox to do the movie — while also filming the hit TV show. ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection So, Fox was ready to team up with Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown to battle with Biff. But stepping in just a few months before release wasn't so simple. The shift added an estimated $3 to $4 million to the movie's budget. And Fox had to continue filming 'Family Ties' at the same time. Advertisement 'Within a week, I was doing both jobs,' Fox said. 'I would do 'Family Ties' in the daytime and I'd do 'Back to the Future' at night. And I was working 18, 19, 20 hours.' He added: 'By the time 'Back to the Future' came out in the summer of '85, there were whole scenes I can't remember shooting because I was so tired during so much of it.' The long, hard days paid off. What was hardly a surefire hit when filming began became a phenomenon, grossing $385 million worldwide, led to two more movies and even inspired a Broadway musical. 5 Stoltz has enjoyed a long career in Hollywood since the dustup. Getty Images for TCM Stoltz's Hollywood career wasn't over either. He received a 1986 Golden Globe nomination for director Peter Bogdanovich's movie 'Mask.' And he's appeared in films such as 'Pulp Fiction,' 'Jerry Maguire' and 'The Butterfly Effect,' and on TV series including 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Madam Secretary.' Stoltz is also a prolific television director. And since that tough experience, Fox and Stoltz have become unlikely pals. 'It was a wonderful actor — great actor — who since has become a friend of mine and someone I've had a good time with, talking about this turn in our lives and how we both ended up in different places,' Fox said during a 2025 'Back to the Future' panel at the Calgary Expo. 'I've learned a lot about acceptance and perseverance from him. He's a great guy, Eric Stoltz.'
Winnipeg Free Press
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Bringing McFly's Gibson back from the past, er, future
The cherry-red Gibson ES-345 Michael J. Fox plays as Marty McFly in the 1985 film Back to the Future is, to use an overused word, iconic. It's also been missing for decades. And now, in honour of the movie's 40th anniversary, Gibson wants to find it. The guitar brand has launched a worldwide missing-guitar campaign complete with a tip submission website and 1-800 line to assist with the search, which will be featured in a forthcoming documentary called Lost to the Future. Jason Goodrich photo Huey Lewis (left) and Michael J. Fox took part in a teaser video asking for the public's help in finding the guitar. Jason Goodrich photo Huey Lewis (left) and Michael J. Fox took part in a teaser video asking for the public's help in finding the guitar. Gibson also released a buzzy teaser video last week featuring Back to the Future stars Fox, Lea Thompson, Christopher Lloyd and Huey Lewis — who had a cameo in the film — asking the public for their help. 'We're trying to find the guitar I played in Back to the Future,' Fox says in the video. 'It's somewhere lost in the space-time continuum, or it's in some Teamster's garage.' 'This is a global search that we're inviting fans to embark on with us. We're taking this to the back alleys of London and the pawn shops of Brazil, the prop houses of L.A. to the streets of Winnipeg,' Gibson's media director Todd Harapiak tells the Free Press. Harapiak, as it happens, is from Winnipeg. 'Who knows where this guitar is?' It's a guitar that's long captured the imagination of filmmaker Doc Crotzer, who is directing Lost to the Future. He even has photographic evidence of himself as a little kid recreating that famous scene of Marty McFly performing Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, sliding across the floor. '(The idea) traces back to when we each first saw the movie, honestly, and it inspired each of us, like so many other kids of our generation, to pick up guitars, to get into rock 'n' roll,' says Crotzer, whose 1983 birth year puts him squarely in that demographic. 'The through line of the documentary, of course, is the search for this instrument. But the heart of the documentary is what the movie and that scene and that guitar means for an entire generation of people who were inspired by it in so many different ways.' Mark Agnesi, Gibson's director of brand experience, has been looking for that guitar for 16 years, fascinated by the lore and mystery surrounding it. Steve Rose photo From left: Mark Agnesi, Gibson's director of brand experience, Gibson's media director Todd Harapiak, and filmmaker Doc Crotzer Steve Rose photo From left: Mark Agnesi, Gibson's director of brand experience, Gibson's media director Todd Harapiak, and filmmaker Doc Crotzer How the story goes: Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis realized the guitar was missing when it was needed for 1989's Back to the Future: Part II and it's been lost ever since. 'My story with it starts in 2009 when I became the general manager of Norman's Rare Guitars in Los Angeles,' Agnesi says. 'Norm rented them the guitar for the movie. 'And obviously that guitar is the reason why I play guitar. That scene is the whole reason that has sent me on this journey.' Universal Pictures Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly: playing the Gibson 'like a-ringin' a bell.' Universal Pictures Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly: playing the Gibson 'like a-ringin' a bell.' Agnesi figures Marty McFly's guitar would be a late 1960 or 1961 model. They do not have the serial number for it, which makes things a bit more challenging, because there are hundreds of red 345s from that era floating around. But this one has a distinguishing feature. 'Gibson ES-345s have what we call split parallelogram inlays — two parallelograms with a little piece of wood in between there. All of them have this,' Agnesi explains. All of them except the cherry-red Gibson ES-345 in question. 'If you look at the 12th fret, you will notice there is a solid parallelogram that's not supposed to be there,' Agnesi says. 'That's the smoking gun.' Since the tip site went up last week, Gibson has seen about 100 people per hour either signing up to stay updated or submitting tips, which the team will now have to sort through and vet. They fully expect to be sent on some wild goose chases, but that's part of the fun, too. Any tip is a good tip, Agnesi says. 'Did you see it in the '90s? Did you see it at a store? Did you see it at an auction? Did you see it on the wall somewhere? Do you know somebody who has it? Like any kind of tip that we can get to piece together what happened from 1985 and the chain of command all the way to where it is now.' The hopeful outcome is that they find it and are able to display it somewhere so that other fans can enjoy it. They also hope to reunite it with Fox. Steve Rose photo Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd takes part in the documentary Lost to the Future. Steve Rose photo Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd takes part in the documentary Lost to the Future. 'We don't expect whoever has it to just hand it over to us,' Crotzer says. 'But there's something poetic, whether it's for an hour or forever, about reuniting the guitar with Michael J. Fox, especially in the documentary when you hear how he talks about that guitar and how special it was to him.' When all three men talk about meeting Fox, they are instantly transformed into '80s kids again. 'Yeah, the whole 'don't meet your heroes' saying? Does not apply,' Crotzer says. 'One of the things that I really hope that we can accomplish with this, too, is I want Michael J. Fox to get his due as a guitar hero,' Agnesi says. 'He's a lot of people's guitar hero, and because he wasn't in a band, he's always overlooked. But Michael J. Fox needs to get his proper due as the guitar hero that he is.' And if they don't find the guitar? 'Oh, we're going to find it,' Agnesi says. 'I don't know where, but we're going to find it.' Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Hamilton Spectator
09-06-2025
- General
- Hamilton Spectator
Horoscope for Monday, June 9th, 2025
Today may feel like a mixed bag. On one hand, we may feel blocked or challenged at every turn. Yet on the other hand, opportunities for growth and success abound. To take advantage of these opportunities, we should do our best to avoid giving in to pessimistic thinking. If we can remain flexible and optimistic while calling on the support of those closest to us, then we should be able to overcome any obstacles in our path. Going forward, we'll find gifts, blessings and meaningful experiences by way of family, empathy, and the power of our intuition. ARIES (March 21 to April 19) The love you get from your family and community will give you the strength needed to handle whatever comes your way. TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Whatever you decide to put your mind to, know that you can achieve it. Think positively. GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) If you haven't felt very hopeful about your financial future, you will soon. CANCER (June 21 to July 22) A new path, beginning or opportunity is on the horizon that will lead you to personal growth and success. Be ready to get out of your own way. LEO (July 23 to Aug. 22) It's time to reacquaint yourself with the spiritual side of life. Get in touch with what your soul is seeking. VIRGO (Aug. 23 to Sept. 22) A wish could be granted, so think carefully about what you want. On another note, your social circle is about to expand. Focus on building meaningful connections. LIBRA (Sept. 23 to Oct. 22) You may soon find yourself with goals or aspirations that you never considered before. Say 'hello' to the new you! SCORPIO (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21) Feed your mind and satiate your wanderlust. The world is your oyster! SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 to Dec. 21) Help arrives in the nick of time. Yes, you are loved. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 to Jan. 19) Let the DIY life go. It's time to buddy up and get some help with what you want to accomplish. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18) Life is about to get very busy. Get ready to level up! PISCES (Feb. 19 to March 20) You are deserving of joy and love — and don't you forget it! FOR TODAY'S BIRTHDAY You care about others, and you're not afraid to let them know how you feel. Conversation and communication are a part of your love language. You adore anyone who can engage your intellect and make you think. You may have friends from different backgrounds or walks of life because you just love being around people and getting to know them. This year, partnership will play a big role in your life as wins and accomplishments you seek will come via rewarding connections. BIRTHDATE OF: Johnny Depp, actor; Michael J. Fox, actor/producer; Natalie Portman, actress.
Global News
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Global News
Search for lost ‘Back to the Future' guitar back on, 40 years after film debut
Marty McFly grabbed a guitar in Back to the Future and rocked out with the band at a 1950s high school dance, helping him narrowly avoid blinking out of existence before time-travelling back to the 1980s. The guitar, in real life, wasn't as lucky. Filmmakers went looking for the instrument while making the movie's 1989 sequel, but even now it's nowhere to be found. Four decades after the blockbuster film debuted, the guitar's creator has launched a search for the iconic Cherry Red Gibson ES-345. View image in full screen Michael J Fox leaping in air with guitar in a scene from the film 'Back To The Future', 1985. Universal / Getty Images Gibson, which is based in Nashville, is asking the public for help tracking it down as the movie turns 40 and as the company produces a new documentary about the search and the film, Lost to the Future. Story continues below advertisement In a video by Gibson, with the movie's theme song playing in the background, Back to the Future stars such as Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Harry Waters Jr. make a cinematic plea. There's also a surprise appearance by Huey Lewis, whose band Huey Lewis and the News performed the soundtrack's headliner song, The Power of Love. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Lloyd, in the cadence of Doc Brown, says in the video that the guitar has been 'lost to the future.' 'It's somewhere lost in the space-time continuum,' says Fox, who played McFly. 'Or it's in some Teamster's garage.' 1:21 Michael J. Fox plays 'Johnny B Goode' with Coldplay during show in New York City In the film, McFly steps in for an injured band member at the 1955 school dance with the theme 'Enchantment under the Sea' playing the guitar as students slow dance to Earth Angel. He then leads Marvin Barry and the Starlighters in a rendition of Johnny B. Goode, calling it an oldie where he comes from, even though the 1958 song doesn't exist yet for his audience. Story continues below advertisement Fox said he wanted McFly to riff through his favourite guitarists' signature styles — Jimi Hendrix behind the head, Pete Townshend's windmill and the Eddie Van Halen hammer. After digging and dancing to Johnny B. Goode, the students at the dance fall into an awkward silence as McFly's riffs turn increasingly wild. 'I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet,' McFly says. 'But your kids are gonna love it.'
