Michael J. Fox talks finally meeting Eric Stoltz 40 years after the shock of BACK TO THE FUTURE

Four decades have passed since then Back to the future hit theaters and became one of the most beloved sci-fi adventures of all time. But behind that meteoric success was a great Hollywood story, Michael J. Fox famously replaced Eric Stoltz while filming as Marty McFly.

Now, after all these years, the two actors have finally met, and it seems that the long-awaited meeting was nothing but positive.

Fox, now 64, revealed to People that he and Stoltz recently hooked up while he was working on his new memoir Future boywhich explores the whirlwind period in which he was filming both Family ties AND Back to the future at the same time.

“When I decided to write Future boywe talked to everyone – Robert Zemeckis, Lea Thompson, Justine Bateman – but Eric was one of the few who refused to participate,” Fox said.

Stoltz, originally cast as Marty McFly, was replaced a few weeks into production when Zemeckis and his team realized he wasn’t quite the right fit for the film’s lighter tone.

Although Stoltz backed out of contributing to the book, Fox told the actor, he has remained largely silent about it Back to the future forty years of experience, agreed to meet him in person.

“It was amazing. It was a great conversation. There were just two guys talking, and that’s what I thought it would be,” Fox shared. The meeting took place at the Fox office in New York City and he described it as an honest and genuine reconnection.

“There’s this whole mythology built around what happened. Was it backstabbing? Were there conniving, evil people? No, it’s just what happened,” Fox continued. “We had different experiences with the same situation, you absorb it and move on.”

Although Fox keeps most of their private conversations under wraps, he shares a funny story in his memoir about realizing they had actually met before Back to the future.

“During our initial efforts to find a foothold in the film world, we had both auditioned That of Franc Roddam intensely dramatic, intensely dark, intensely intense film The Lords of Discipline, of a military academy in the South,” Fox writes Future boy.

“The casting director asked us to read a scene together, and Eric took the ‘intense’ note to heart, forcefully grabbing my shirt and nearly ripping it in half. Neither of us got the part.”

That movie, which ended up having the protagonist David Keith, Michael BiehnAND Bill Paxtoncame out in theaters in 1983.

Since their meeting, Fox says the two have actually become friends. At the Back to the future panel at the Calgary Expo earlier this year, Fox praised Stoltz as a “wonderful actor… who has since become a friend of mine and someone I’ve had fun with, talking about this turning point in our lives and how we both ended up in different places.”

“I learned a lot about acceptance and perseverance from him. He’s a great guy, Eric Stoltz,” Fox added.

For Back to the future fans, hearing that the two men have finally shared a moment of peace and friendship is something truly beautiful.