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Michael J. Fox was a household name in 1985 thanks to his buoyant portrayal of Young Republican supreme Alex P. Keaton in “Family Ties.” It was a magic act. Regardless of your politics, Alex, the son of hippie parents, was a relatable character. His rightward swing was a Ronald Reagan-era form of teenage rebellion, pushing back against peace and love in the name of unfettered capitalism. He could’ve been the villain of the piece, but Fox was too damn likable (and the show’s writing was too empathetic) to turn him into a harbinger of GOP fascism. He was a good kid who loved his family, got his heart broken once or twice, and, most importantly, was still figuring things out.
Fox was too talented to be defined as Alex P. Keaton, but he hadn’t made his mark in movies. He played David Naughton’s bratty little brother in the underrated scavenger hunt romp “Midnight Madness” and designated nerd victim Arthur in the juvenile delinquent exploitation flick “Class of 1984.”
Filmmakers took note of Fox’s work in “Family Ties,” but he wasn’t at the front of the line for big studio projects in 1984. That’s how Eric Stoltz claimed the role of Marty McFly in “Back to the Future.” But when Stoltz wasn’t delivering what director Robert Zemeckis needed, Fox was brought in as his replacement. It was a brilliant move, and it wound up boosting the box office fortunes of a low-budget horror-comedy that Fox had made during a “Family Ties” hiatus. “Teen Wolf” could’ve been released earlier in 1985, but Atlantic Releasing Company wisely chose to let the Spielberg-produced event film pave the way. “Back to the Future” was still the top grossing movie domestically when “Teen Wolf” hit theaters and debuted at number two in its opening weekend.
Teen Wolf was a bonus hit for Michael J. Fox in 1985
“Teen Wolf” (written by future Marvel Comics superstar Jeph Loeb) was in the can before Universal recruited Michael J. Fox to replace Eric Stoltz in “Back to the Future.” Scraped together on a $4 million budget, “Teen Wolf” was a witless, fur-brained programmer destined to score a tidy profit on Fox’s “Family Ties” appeal. Then “Back to the Future” happened, and Atlantic hung back a month to cash in on the summer’s biggest movie.
Fox wasn’t proud of his work in “Teen Wolf.” As he wrote in his memoir:
“It was already obvious to me that ‘Teen Wolf,’ filmed a few months prior, was not my magnum opus, One day on the set of that film, the prop guy made me take a few photos holding a chocolate bar so they could show the confectioner who supplied the candy that we had actually used their product in the movie. Covered in yak hair, I told him that I felt like a w**** doing this. The prop guy said, ‘Well, you are a w****.'”
And yet “Teen Wolf” works as a crowd-pleaser where the underdog becomes an over-confident jerk before rediscovering his decency. It’s an effective movie, but it would’ve been quickly forgotten had it not opened on August 23, 1985, in the hard-churning wake of “Back to the Future.” It actually came pretty close to supplanting “Back to the Future” as the top film at the U.S. box office, no less, and, as a result, spawned a film sequel and an MTV television series. That was the power of Fox.
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