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Robert Zemeckis’s brings his technical brilliance to this vertigo-inducing tale of high-wire artist Philippe Petit

James Marsh’s brilliantly dramatic 2008 documentary Man on Wire told us much about Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who famously performed an illegal high-wire act between the twin towers of New York’s newly built World Trade Center in 1974. From the retrospectively sinister overtones of planning of “le coup” (the “artistic crime of the century”) to Petit’s euphoric post-walk infidelity (he discovered “what it meant to be famous”, recalls former girlfriend, Annie Allix), Marsh’s film provided both a celebration and analysis of this supremely life-affirming stunt. All it lacked was moving footage of the walk itself, which is preserved only in still photographs and in the vivid memories of those who saw it with their own eyes. Robert Zemeckis’s lively drama fills that gap with a show-stopping sequence that puts the viewer...

Robert Zemeckis is teaming up with producer Tom Rothman for To Reach For the Clouds, a 3D narrative remake of the hit documentary Man on Wire, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt being eyed to star. The producer is acquiring the rights to the memoirs of Philippe Petit, the man who walked on a tightrope between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974. Robert Zemeckis will direct from a script he is co-writing with Christopher Browne. The original Man on Wire documentary, directed by James Marsh, won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2009.

This will be the first project under Tom Rothman's TriStar Productions company, which is said to be in the same vein as experimental 3D projects he shepherded during his time at 20th Century Fox, such as Avatar and Life of Pi. The idea for the project reportedly came to the producer after he watched Gravity, as he tried to think of...

Photo: Magnolia Pictures Considering the preparation it took Philippe Petit and his band of co-conspirators to make ready his famed walk between the newly constructed World Trade Center towers in 1974 you would think when asked why he did it the answer would be more than a laugh and a smile followed by, "There was no why." As it turns out, that answer is actually what makes Man on Wire so intriguing. The events of 9/11 make it impossible not to take the falling towers into consideration when watching this film. However, as Man on Wire begins and we see archived footage of construction crews working to build the two 1,300 foot towers we are instantly introduced to a renewed perspective of the Towers. The towers were constructed for business and economic purposes only to be destroyed in an act of terrorism. But for Philippe Petit they became a lifelong dream ever since...

Man on Wire

Featuring Philippe Petit, Paul McGill, and Annie Allix

Directed by James Marsh

Rated PG-13

1974 had already been marked by Hank Aaron's record-breaking swing, terrorist bombings in Northern Ireland, a coup d'etat in Cyprus, Vietnam, and the Watergate scandal. Within two weeks after Philippe Petit, the world would see Nixon's resignation, the botched assassination attempt of the South Korean President that killed his first lady, Evel Knievel's doomed Snake Canyon jump, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the Rumble in the Jungle.

But for 45 minutes on August 7th, Philippe Petit stopped the world for one morning and forced everyone in it to look up. Perched about a quarter-mile in the air, Petit delicately walked a high wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center.

He did it because it's what he did. Petit had previously scaled much smaller local landmarks throughout Europe and even in Australia,...

Nearly seven years after 9/11, it's ironic, and oddly comforting, that the criminal most closely associated with the World Trade Center is arguably a French tightrope walker who inched his way between the towers more than 1,300 feet in the air.

Philip Petit was arrested for his 1974 feat and still describes himself as a criminal, but was sentenced to community service - a walk over Belvedere Lake in Central Park.

He was a huge celebrity, a hero, and the Port Authority, which owned the towers, considered his walk a publicity coup for a pair of enormous, ugly buildings that had trouble attracting tenants.

Petit...