 Michael J. Fox (I) (qv) had always been the first choice for  Marty, but he turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with his  work on _"Family Ties" (1982)_ (qv). Eric Stoltz (qv) was cast as  Marty but he disagreed with the rest of the cast and crew about the  tone of the film. After a few weeks of filming, Fox was asked to  replace Stoltz. Fox worked out a schedule to fulfill his commitment  to both projects. Every day during production, he drove straight to  the movie set after taping of the show was finished every day and  averaged about one or two hours of sleep. The bulk of the production  was filmed from 6pm to 6am, with the daylight scenes filmed on  weekends.