Marvel Stars Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland Inserted Into Back to the Future Deepfake

This is heavy: Marvel stars Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland have been convincingly inserted into a scene from Back to the Future. The deepfake, created by EZRyderX47 on YouTube, sees Holland’s face digitally imposed over Marty McFly actor Michael J. Fox, with Downey taking over the role of Christopher Lloyd‘s eccentric scientist Doc Emmett Brown, the inventor of time travel. This edited scene from director Robert Zemeckis’ hit 1985 comedy shows Holland’s Marty stranded in 1955, where the time-travelling teen is distressed to learn his high school-aged mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) is infatuated with him.

Incidentally, it was Fox’s Marty McFly who influenced Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Holland’s first solo outing as Spider-Man.

“I think that was one of the things that [director Jon Watts] set out to do and it’s just a reflection on him, as a director, that’s he’s getting this kind of a response from it,” Holland said in a 2017 interview with Yahoo Movies. “He gave us a load of videos, old movies, to watch before starting shooting: Pretty in Pink, Back to the Future, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. My goal was to try and kind of be our generation’s Marty McFly. That was what my all-time goal was, and I was actually lucky enough that a journalist said, ‘Oh, you’re kind of like Marty McFly in this movie.’”

Holland and Downey first appeared together in Captain America: Civil War before re-teaming on Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. They collaborated a fifth time in Dolittle, where Downey stars as the titular physician capable of speaking to animals.

But a deepfake might be the closest the stars get to rebooting Back to the Future: Zemeckis has ruled out a Back to the Future Part IV or any kind of remake.

A remake “can’t happen until both [co-writer Bob Gale] and I are dead,” Zemeckis said in 2015, during the 30th anniversary of the original movie that ultimately spawned a trilogy. “And then I’m sure they’ll do it, unless there’s a way our estates can stop it. I mean, to me, [a remake is] outrageous. Especially since it’s a good movie. It’s like saying ‘Let’s remake Citizen Kane. Who are we going to get to play Kane?’ What folly, what insanity is that? Why would anyone do that?”

Zemeckis reaffirmed that point in 2018, saying, “There will never, ever be, in the most absolutely way, a Back to the Future 4. There will be no more Back to the Future.”

Lloyd has expressed an interest in reprising his famed role in a crossover with adult animated series Rick and Morty, the fan-favorite toon born from a Back to the Future parody.