Remember when being a werewolf solved all your high school problems? In 1985, a scrappy little comedy called Teen Wolf let a struggling basketball bench warmer named Scott Howard find out he had a werewolf gene and turn into the biggest star on the court overnight. What most fans never knew is that two countries sold the movie as something else entirely, and it still raked in $80 million on a $4 million budget.

The retro movie channel Remember When counted down 15 weird facts about the film, starring Michael J. Fox, Susan Ursitti, Jerry Levine and James Hampton. It was a low-budget comedy with a cast few people were watching, and it became one of 1985’s surprise hits.

Here are the best stories from the behind-the-scenes list, starting with how the studio nearly buried the picture and then rode a bigger movie to the bank.

A Cheap Movie With a Borrowed Hit

Atlantic Releasing shot Teen Wolf in late 1984 for $4 million, which the channel jokes is about the catering budget on a John Hughes film. Michael J. Fox squeezed it into his Family Ties hiatus, spending weeks sweating in werewolf prosthetics. That break in his schedule happened because Meredith Baxter Birney was pregnant with twins, so the show paused production for her storyline.

The planned five-week shoot was squeezed to 21 days because the budget was tight and the clock was ticking. When filming wrapped, Fox went right back to playing Alex P. Keaton on TV.

Then Back to the Future arrived in July of 1985 and made Fox the biggest name around. The studio delayed Teen Wolf’s release by seven weeks to ride those coattails, with posters announcing that Michael J. Fox was back from the future in a new comedy.

Even so, the studio expected a flop. According to the channel, director Rod Daniel showed up to an early screening with maybe four other people in the theater. By that evening there were packed houses and lines around the block.

Italy and Brazil Sold a Different Movie

International distributors saw Fox’s Back to the Future fame and decided to market the film in a completely different way. In Italy, Scott Howard became Marty, and the movie was retitled with a name that translates to “we will win.” It was sold as a sports drama with every werewolf reference removed, so ticket buyers expecting a basketball story got a lycanthropy comedy instead.

Brazil went even further. The film was renamed O Garoto do Futuro, which means The Boy From the Future, and a werewolf basketball comedy was marketed as a time travel sequel. Brazilian audiences showed up expecting DeLoreans and got dunking wolves.

The wildest part is that it worked. Teen Wolf opened at number two in the United States on August 23rd, 1985, just seven weeks after Back to the Future, which was still sitting at number one. Worldwide the film made $80 million against that $4 million budget.

The Neighbor Down the Block

Teen Wolf and Back to the Future share more than a star. The Howard family home sits at 1727 Bushnell Avenue in South Pasadena, which fans may recognize as Lorraine Baines’s house in Back to the Future. George McFly’s house was right down the block at 1711 Bushnell Avenue.

Fox filmed scenes for both movies on the same suburban street, sometimes while Back to the Future was still shooting with Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly. One neighbor could have watched the same young actor surf a van in a fur suit on Monday and run from a DeLorean on Wednesday.

A Ringer on the Court

Driving a DeLorean through time was a piece of cake for Fox, but he could not make a free throw. After two weeks of practice, Rod Daniel watched him attempt a foul shot and made a phone call. Enter Jeff Glosser, a Loyola Marymount college basketball player who could actually play.

Glosser spent hours in full werewolf prosthetics, sometimes sitting in the makeup chair for 12 hours just to dunk a ball on camera. He and Fox both survived on liquid diets, because the glued-on muzzles made chewing impossible. Every basketball scene became a choreographed dance of close-ups of Fox looking determined and wide shots of Glosser sinking baskets. The extras were pumped during the six-day game shoot, and Daniel later said they kept about an hour of embarrassing sports footage.

Grown-Ups in Letterman Jackets

The high school students in Teen Wolf were not teenagers. Fox was 23 playing 17-year-old Scott Howard. Jerry Levine, who played Styles, was 27, and Mark Holton, who played Chubby, was 26. Mark Arnold, who played Mick, was 27, and Susan Ursitti was the baby of the group as Boof at 22.

The channel says the reason was simple: child labor laws limit how many hours real teens can work, while adults can pull 12-hour days. This was not unique to Teen Wolf, either. The entire decade ran on adults pretending to be teenagers, from Grease to Beverly Hills, 90210, which premiered in 1990.

Slaps, Casting Swaps and a Missing Soundtrack

When Boof slaps Scott in the film, it looks real because it was. Susan Ursitti had no stage combat experience, so she hit Fox hard several times before Daniel stopped filming and taught her the stage slap, the Hollywood trick that makes the sound of impact without the pain.

James Hampton showed up to audition for Coach Finstock and left with a different role. After reading scenes together, Fox suggested Hampton try out for his dad instead. Jay Tarses got Coach Finstock, and Hampton became Harold Howard, the werewolf dad, though he later admitted the makeup was miserable.

Music fans got a raw deal too. An LP and cassette came out in 1985 with only part of the soundtrack, and original copies now sell for $200 to $500. The biggest omission was Surfin’ USA by the Beach Boys, the song from the van surfing scene, which licensing issues kept off every official release. A limited CD with nine tracks later appeared in Germany and Japan, but it was still incomplete.

Cartoons, a Reboot and Fox’s Verdict

The success launched two very different follow-ups. CBS turned the movie into a Saturday morning cartoon in 1986 that lasted 21 episodes. In 2011, MTV rebooted it as a brooding supernatural drama that ran six seasons and 100 episodes.

Fox himself does not look back fondly. In his 2025 memoir, Future Boy, he calls the film “not my magnum opus” and describes the script as hackneyed. When Teen Wolf 2 was greenlit in 1987, Fox said absolutely not, and Jason Bateman took the part instead.

Still, Fox also admitted the movie proved he could carry a film on his own. For a werewolf comedy made in 21 days, that is quite a legacy.

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