'Back To The Future': Watch Jon Cryer's failed audition to play Marty McFly (exclusive)

Watch: Jon Cryer auditioning to play Marty McFly in Back To The Future

Earlier this year Two and Half Men star Jon Cryer revealed he had auditioned for the role of Marty McFly in the 1985 classic Back To The Future. In a long Twitter thread, he revealed details of the original pre-DeLorean script for the film, from which he auditioned.

Famously, Pulp Fiction star Eric Stoltz landed the role and began shooting on the Robert Zemeckis film for a few weeks before producers had second thoughts and replaced him with Michael J Fox. But before that, every young star in Hollywood was vying for the role, including Ben Stiller, Billy Zane, and Cryer.

Now, thanks to the new Back To The Future: The Ultimate Trilogy – which sees the iconic sci-fi trilogy released in 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever – we can see some of Cryer’s audition tape reading from the original script.

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Watch it above.

The new collection comes with over an hour of brand-new content such as rare audition footage from Hollywood stars Ben Stiller, Kyra Sedgwick, Cryer, Billy Zane, Peter DeLuise and C. Thomas Howell, a tour of the film’s props and memorabilia hosted by co-writer/producer Bob Gale, a sneak peek at the new musical show, and a special episode of the popular YouTube Series “Could You Survive The Movies?”

The co-creator of Back To The Future has said the film would have never been the success it was if Eric Stoltz had not been replaced by Michael J Fox as Marty McFly while the film was already in production.

Writer Bob Gale, who penned the script with director Robert Zemeckis after discovering his own father’s high school yearbook, told the PA news agency: “If we had finished the film with Eric Stoltz I don’t think we would be having this conversation today, Michael was that much better.

“Michael J Fox was perfect, it’s hard to imagine anybody else as Marty.

“It’s hard to imagine anybody else in any of those key roles really, they grew into their parts thanks to their own talent, thanks to Bob Zemeckis’s directing, thanks to what was a pretty good script, and everything else that was in support of the picture.”

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The film is now 35 years old but Gale said: “So much of it is extremely vivid, it is in a weird way kind of like watching a home movie.”

However, the writer said it would be unlikely the film, which is based on an original idea rather than a pre-existing property, would be made in 2020.

Watch: A trailer for the Back To The Future remaster

He said: “I think we would have a very hard time getting it made because it’s really hard to get something original made and then in today’s environment they would say what is this relationship between Marty and Doc? ‘Is there some paedophilia thing happening here?’ People would say that today.

“Watch the movie and it never crosses your mind, you just say ‘Oh Marty is fascinated by this guy, he’s the father that Marty didn’t have, Doc hired this guy as his helper cos they are both kind of outcasts’ and we see it play out and you just totally buy it.

“But in today’s world studio executives would completely overthink it and I don’t know what kind of movie it would turn out to be if we were trying to make it today but I’m just really glad that it was made when we did.”

Back To The Future: The Ultimate Trilogy is available in 4K HDR now from Universal Home Entertainment.