Crispin Glover, Bob Gale, and the controversial case of George McFly in 'Back to the Future Part II'

Crispin Glover had a career-changing role when he played Marty McFly's dad, George McFly, in "Back to the Future."

But when the sequel came around, negotiations fell apart and he was not included in the filming. Although audiences in theaters might think otherwise. The filmmakers used heavy prosthetics and makeup on actor Jeffrey Weissman who played George McFly in just a few scenes.

Glover was incensed at this use of his likeness and sued Universal Pictures. In the years since, he has consistently blamed co-writer and producer Bob Gale for the replacement, calling him a "thief" in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment. However, Gale denies any wrongdoing, saying he went through entirely legal means.

Video Transcript

CRISPIN GLOVER: They stole something. And it's illegal to steal something. It's really that simple. And Bob Gale quite literally is a thief, no exaggeration.

- What happened to grandpa?

- Oh, he threw his back out again.

- How's granddad's little pumpkin?

- How did you do that? How did he do that?

- Oh, out on the golf course.

KEVIN POLOWY: We had Crispin Glover in our studios not too long ago, pre-COVID. I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to hear he continues to have a bone to pick with you over the use of his likeness in part II. He got pretty riled up, says he's been caused a lot of grief. He called you a thief. How do you react to his continual frustration with that situation?

BOB GALE: Crispin had an opportunity to participate in the sequels. We made what we thought, and what is agent at the time thought, was an excellent offer, and he turned it down for money.

CRISPIN GLOVER: And there's one producer in particular, Bob Gale, who's obviously unrelenting. If he pretends that it isn't illegal, which amazes me, and it amazes me that people don't point him to it. You know, there's the classic thing where somebody will blame a victim when they have done something illegal. That's what Bob Gale does. That is incredibly infuriating.

- I'm your density. I mean, your destiny.

BOB GALE: We checked with the legal department at Universal if we had permission to use footage of him from the first movie in the second movie, and they said yes. And do we have permission to make another actor resemble him? Yes. And you see that all the time. I mean, Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies. Richard Harris died, and the new Dumbledore has a strong resemblance to old Dumbledore. We didn't do anything that was illegal.

- Mmhm, I--

- --can't let him think I'm chicken.

- You're right.

CRISPIN GLOVER: The acting of the person that had prosthetics of my face is not a good performance. And to have people believe that that's my performance, I would have never made the choices or done any of the things that that actor did. And then to have people attribute it out to you at an important time in your career, it's really, really not right.

It's too bad, because I did enjoy playing the character. I did enjoy working with Robert Zemeckis and the cast. And it's something I should be able to just say, yeah, great.

He should say he did something illegal and that he apologized. That's what he should-- but he's not the kind of person that will do that.

KEVIN POLOWY: So you don't have any regrets with how that situation was handled.

BOB GALE: At the very beginning, Crispin asked for more money than we were willing to pay. We proceeded on the basis that we weren't going to have him in the sequels.

At a certain point, Crispin's agent called us and said Crispin thinks maybe he made a mistake, and is there a possibility him getting into the sequels? Sure. Have him come in. We'll talk him about it. We met with Zemeckis. It was at that point that we negotiated a deal for him to be in both part II and part III, and he ended up not taking the deal. So here you go.

I'm sorry that Crispin is still angry with me. He seems to take it out on me personally. I don't understand why. Everybody at the studio was involved in this decision, including director Bob Zemeckis. Crispin obviously didn't have a problem with Bob Zemeckis, because he goes off and he did Beowulf with him.

- (SCREAMING)

CRISPIN GLOVER: I had a positive experience working with Zemeckis again. There are scars or wounds from that kind of a situation.

BOB GALE: You know, Crispin made his choices, and there it is.

- I'm afraid I'm just not very good at confrontations.