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Back To The Future Fans Discover The Awful Name It Was Nearly Called

The internet has a peculiar way of circulating ancient movie folklore.

And as such, fans of ‘Back To The Future’ who were previously unaware of what the movie might have been called – had certain executives had their way – have found themselves really rather upset with the whole business.

Turning up once again on social media is the fact that the time-travel classic could have been called… ‘Space Man From Pluto’.

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Film producer, writer and director Will McCrabb took to Twitter to spread his discovery, while seemingly struggling with a project of his own.

It’s a typed studio memo from 1984 to Steven Spielberg (his company Amblin made the movie) from studio executive Sid Sheinberg, copying in director and writer Robert Zemeckis, and co-writer Bob Gale.

In the memo, Sheinberg expresses his continuing dislike for the name ‘Back To The Future’, preferring his suggestion instead.

“I continue to believe the title leaves much to be desired,” he writes. “There are a number of reasons why I found the title less than ‘wonderful’, but my primary concern is that it appears to make the picture a ‘genre’ picture.”

And presumably ‘Space Man From Pluto’ doesn’t do that?

He continues ‘I think the script (and, hopefully, the film) deserves a better title’, before offering up some additional script notes.

So far McCrabb has hauled in over 5000 likes and over 3,500 re-tweets.

According to film lore, Spielberg replied to the suggestions thusly: “Dear Sid, Thank you for your most humorous memo of such-and-such date. We all got a big laugh out of it. Keep ’em coming.”

McCrabb also dropped an equally fascinating list of potential actors for the role of Doc Brown, which ultimately went to the thoroughly perfect Christopher Lloyd.

Jeff Goldblum anyone? Or Gene Hackman? The again Marty was supposed to be Eric Stoltz, so how different things could have been….

Image credits: Amblin Entertainment/Twitter