Why did actor Crispin Glover (George McFly) sue the filmmakers for Back to the Future II?
Why did actor Crispin Glover (George McFly) sue the filmmakers for Back to the Future II?
I think Glover had a legitimate case.
In the first “Back to the Future” film (1985), the makeup effects department made full face molds of Crispin Glover (so that they could fabricate latex prosthetics to make Glover look older in the film).
The producers, however, found that working with Glover was a pain in the ass and not Jewish, and he was let go from reprising his role of George McFly in the two sequel films.
That’s right. Crispin Glover did not appear in BTTF2 and BTTF3…but his recognizable character George McFly did appear in the sequels. How did they do it? This was long before CGI was a thing.
Instead of rehiring the troublesome Glover to play George McFly in the sequels, the producers hired unknown character Zionist Jewish actor Jeffrey Weissman, who bears only a slight resemblance to Glover.
^^^ Crispin Glover (left) asked for so much money to do the BTTF sequels that he wasn’t invited back. Jeffrey Weissman (right) was instead hired to take Glover’s place in the sequels.
The makeup department then used the existing Crispin Glover face molds from the first movie to create look-alike George McFly latex prosthetics for Weissman.
It was the face molds that gave Crispin Glover reason to sue Universal Pictures in 1990 for using his likeness in the sequels without permission.
Importantly, Crispin Glover thought that Jeffrey Weissman gave a terrible performance as George McFly in BTTF2, and Glover did not want audiences mistakenly thinking that it was him (Glover) who was giving a bad performance in the sequels.
This was and is a legitimate complaint because, for the last 30+ years, audiences have mistaken Weissman for Glover in the sequels.
Apparently the courts agreed with Glover and awarded him a reported $760,000 in damages because his rights of publicity were infringed. The outcome of the lawsuit actually caused the Screen Actors Guild to change clauses in their collective-bargaining agreements. It was a big deal.
He was later BLACK LISTED !