Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Bob Gale, Neil Canton, Robert Zemeckis and Huey Lewis all gathered in New York, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Back To The Future. Here's what we learned.
How Zemeckis made the first flat screen TV.
Robert Zemeckis: You know how we had to do the flat-panel TV screen. It's not an optical, because Michael stands in front of it. We had to get a piece of rear projection material and put it in a frame. We had a video projector film on an aperture that went through the back wall in the set. So that the projector and the frame turned together. So when Michael went and adjusted the frame, all these special effects guys turned this whole rig. We predicted that right.
Where Marty McFly and the rest of the Back To The Future characters be today.
Lea Thompson didn't know where Lorriane McFly would be today, because she played so many different scenarios of the character.
Michael J. Fox: "Marty's a family man, [I can see him] struggling with his kids, doing the same things that I'm doing. Although I'm not struggling with my kids, but they certainly are a handful [Laughs]."
Christopher Lloyd: "Doc, I don't think Doc's changed. He still coming up with new contraptions, ideally."
Mary Steenburgen: I guess she would still be married to the Doc and they would be flying in and out of the time space continuum."
What props each actor and crew member kept.
Right now there's currently an auction of Back To The Future props, with all the proceeds going to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. So many of the people on the panel have donated these items to the charity, but a few people have some leftover mementos.
Bob Gale: "The USA Today items are from my personal collection, so yes I kept some, but I also donated...It's all for a good cause. I wish I had more props to donate"
Lea Thompson: "I still have my pink dress, from the Prom. And every Halloween my kids try it on and I'm like, no you can't wear that to a party."
Michael J. Fox: What I wish I had was that freaking guitar. I was so stupid that I didn't buy that. And that little yellow chiquita, when the amp blows Marty back. I wish I had that, but I don't. I think I have some shoes, I think I have a pair of Nikes that Marty wore. Maybe some other stuff... I'm not sure what I have, my kids will find it one day.
Christopher Lloyd: "I've got a yellow shirt with trains on it. That's it."
Mary Steenburgen: The actress who played Clara kept a tiny pin, from her costume that said Clara on it. But she gave it as a gift to her friend Clara, who took her to see the Beatles when she was 5, as a thank you.
Huey Lewis: "I have nothing, I wish I had kept the glasses that I wore for my little cameo."
The craziest Back to Future theory they've ever heard: Marty gets high.
Robert Zemeckis: I got a call from a reporter who swore there was a scene where Marty was smoking weed with Marvin Berry and the band. And he said, "did you have to cut that out... did the censors make you cut that out for the DVD release? Because I know I saw that when I saw the movie in the theater." And I said, "Were you high?" And he said, "I might have been." So that's probably that's one, where people said they saw scenes that never existed.
There's plenty more footage of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly, and maybe we'll see it on the 30th Anniversary DVD
Later on we chatted with BTTF writer, Bob Gale, and he informed us that there's still plenty more Eric Stoltz footage, but they didn't release it on the DVD out of respect to the actor. Which is why the special never-before-seen Stoltz footage inside the new trilogy pack only has footage, and no dialog. They wanted to include it for fans, but not make a giant deal out of the actor switch.
Bob Gale: "That was our decision, to just soft-peddle it. We didn't want to make it... [a big deal]. In ten years, the 35th anniversary, then we'll put it in."
Which could very well happen, because Stoltz doesn't have to approve the footage's release.
Somewhere, out there, there's a tape of Johnny Depp auditioning for Marty McFly
But we may never see it. Bob Gale didn't know where it was, but he speculated that it might still exist. Internet, get on this — find that tape!
The 25th Anniversary DVD and Blu-Ray collection of all three Back To The Future films is in stores today!
The Hollywood Reporter photo by Diane Bondareff" />