Apple has landed a feature-length documentary about actor and activist Michael J. Fox, tracking his stratospheric rise in Hollywood with Family Ties and the Back to the Future films as well as his personal journey with Parkinson’s disease.
Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, He Named Me Malala) is set to direct the doc that is currently in production, shooting in New York, Los Angeles and Vancouver, and will incorporate documentary, archival and scripted elements.
The doc, as the project’s description reads, will recount “the improbable tale of an undersized kid from a Canadian army base who rose to the heights of stardom in 1980s Hollywood. The account of Fox’s public life, full of nostalgic thrills and cinematic gloss, will unspool alongside his never-before-seen private journey, including the years that followed his diagnosis, at 29, with Parkinson’s disease. Intimate and honest, and produced with unprecedented access to Fox and his family, the film will chronicle Fox’s personal and professional triumphs and travails, and will explore what happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease.”
The untitled Michael J. Fox feature is produced by Guggenheim’s Concordia Studio, which previously worked with Apple on doc Boys State. Guggenheim, Annetta Marion, Will Cohen and Jonathan King will produce, with Laurene Powell Jobs, Jonathan Silberberg, Nicole Stott and Fox’s longtime producing partner Nelle Fortenberry executive producing.
Apple’s other nonfiction offerings include an upcoming doc about Sidney Poitier from Oprah, as well as a doc on Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton.
Fox is repped by UTA and Ziffren Brittenham.
