Michael J Fox announced his retirement as an actor almost three years ago, but the premiere of the remarkable documentary ‘The Life of Michael J. Fox’ has put the spotlight back on the unforgettable Marty McFly from ‘Back to the Future’. That has meant that, despite his delicate state of health, he has granted several interviews and in one of them he has revealed the role that he most regrets having rejected in his entire career: that of Sam Wheat in ‘Ghost ‘.
That character was eventually played by Patrick Swayzebut before that, countless interpreters were tested, such as Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Kline, Alec Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis or Fox himself, who in an interview with The View has commented the following in this regard:
He had an opportunity to work with you that I didn’t take. I was told about ‘Ghost’ early in its development process. I said it would never work. I said “Whoopi is great but it will never work”. And then it was great, a great success and I’m a fucking idiot.
‘Ghost’ ended up being a huge box office success with a worldwide collection of 505 million dollars when its budget had been only 22 million. However, it is easy to understand what led many, including Fox, to reject the project, since the idea of a romance with a ghost sounds quite strange at first, to which must be added that behind the scenes there was Jerry Zuckeruntil then known for his participation in parody comedies such as ‘Land as you can’ or ‘Top Secret’.
Of course, it is difficult not to think that there is a certain revisionism in Fox’s words, because Whoopi Goldberg He commented at the time that the producers of the film were not at all convinced of having her and that it was the pressure exerted by Swayze that was decisive for him to end up giving life to Oda Mae, a character for which he also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.