When Davis Guggenheim approached Michael J. Guggenheim’s wife, the actress Elisabeth Shue, had worked with Fox before, starring as his girlfriend in the second and third installments of the “Back to the Future” series. Even so, Fox initially balked at the idea of a movie, particularly one centered on tales he had already written about in four best-selling memoirs. Guggenheim wanted to make a movie with as much life and humor as its subject, a fun, fast-paced effort not unlike, say, a movie starring Michael J. In the end, Fox relented, albeit with one request: no violins.

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