Michael J. Fox Comes Face-to-Face with the Actor He Replaced in Back to the Future — 40 Years Later
Four decades after taking over as Marty McFly, Michael J. Fox finally reached out to Eric Stoltz—and in his new memoir Future Boy, out October 14, 2025, he admits he was nervous to make the call.
Here is a Hollywood story that has lived in the margins for four decades and finally got a proper, human update: Michael J. Fox has written about reaching out to Eric Stoltz, the guy he replaced as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, for the first time ever. Yes, finally. The moment shows up in Fox's new memoir, 'Future Boy,' which hit shelves on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, and it is both awkward and oddly sweet in exactly the way you hope these things go.
The outreach, 40 years late
Back to the Future is the role most people think of when they think of Fox, but he was not the first Marty. Stoltz was. He shot for more than a month before the filmmakers made a hard pivot and brought in Fox. According to Fox, he had never actually contacted Stoltz about it until now, roughly 40 years after the swap. He admits he was nervous about breaking the silence, especially since Stoltz has never publicly unpacked the whole saga. Entertainment Weekly ran the passages, and the way Fox tells it, he gave Stoltz a clear out, fully expecting to get brushed off.
"Eric has maintained his silence on the subject for forty years, so I was prepared for the likelihood that he'd prefer to keep it that way. If your answer is 'piss off and leave me alone'... that works, too."
Fox says Stoltz actually wrote back with, "Piss off and leave me alone!" and then, "I jest..." He declined to participate in the book but was open to meeting.
Why the recast happened back then
This is one of those behind-the-scenes decisions that still makes your eyebrows go up. The production had already banked weeks of footage with Stoltz when the dailies (the raw scenes everyone reviews after a shoot day) made it clear to the creative team that the tone just was not landing. Fox is careful here: he calls Stoltz an immensely talented actor but says his take on Marty skewed too dramatic, too heavy for what the movie needed. In short, great actor, wrong fit. Painful call, but that is how you end up with the version of Marty everyone knows.
So, how did their first meeting go?
Surprisingly well, by Fox's account. They met, they joked about the whole thing, and it did not turn into a therapy session or a tabloid moment. After that, they kept it friendly over email. Fox says Stoltz's messages are consistently witty and genuinely fun to read. Again, no tell-all from Stoltz himself — he politely passed on contributing to the memoir — but he left the door open to keep talking in real life. Which, honestly, feels like the healthiest version of this story we could have gotten.