25 years ago today, the original Back the the Future film was released.  It was the top grossing film of 1985.  Here’s some things you may not know about the film:

Although Michael J. Fox was always the first pick to play Marty McFly, Fox was too busy filming “Family Ties” to sign on to the project.  They replaced Fox with Eric Stoltz.   After 4 weeks of filming (and $3 million dollars), the producers and Stotz agreed he wasn’t right for the part and he left the project.  Fox was then cast and they worked around his tight schedule to make the film.

Michael J. Fox is only ten days younger than Lea Thompson who plays his mother, and is almost three years older than his on-screen dad, Crispin Glover.

When Marty pretends to be Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan, he plays a tape labeled “Van Halen” to scare George out of his sleep. It is an untitled Edward Van Halen original written for a movie called “The Wild Life”.

In the sequel the entire ending scene from the original movie was painstakingly re-created, shot-for-shot: