We’ve already seen one stunningly good film about Philippe Petit’s illegal walk between the World Trade Center towers in James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire, and now we may be getting another. Next fall, Robert Zemeckis will unveil The Walk, which dramatizes the events of Petit’s book To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers with 50/50 star Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the daredevil.
Seeing as Zemeckis is working in IMAX 3D, The Walk is certainly going to be a gripping adventure for the senses, but the cast that the director has employed also suggests that the movie could be a major awards presence. Gordon-Levitt, looking very much like Petit in the new images from the film which dropped yesterday, is joined by Charlotte Le Bon, playing a member of Petit’s crew, and Ben Kingsley, portraying his mentor Papa Rudy. James Badge Dale, Ben Schwartz, Clément Sibony and César Domboy also co-star.
Zemeckis has proven his mettle as a visual wizard, and what he’s aiming for with The Walk is very exciting. “Now we can put people up there,” the director said of the high wire walk, an act spectators typically can only see looking up from below. Said TriStar chairman Tim Rothman, “This is Gravity meets Ocean’s Eleven. You’ve got an underdog team planning what’s actually an endearing crime.”
Zemeckis added that he doesn’t just view The Walk as a chance to view Petit’s accomplishment from a thrilling new angle. The director also sees his film as “a love story to the city, to the towers. He’s the only person who ever walked it, who ever will. There’s something beautifully powerful about that.”
The Walk opens October 2nd, 2015.
Twelve people have walked on the moon, but only one man has ever, or will ever, walk in the immense void between the World Trade Center towers. Guided by his real-life mentor, Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), and aided by an unlikely band of international recruits, Petit and his gang overcome long odds, betrayals, dissension and countless close calls to conceive and execute their mad plan. Robert Zemeckis, the director of such marvels as Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Back to the Future, Polar Express and Flight, again uses cutting edge technology in the service of an emotional, character-driven story. With innovative photorealistic techniques and IMAX 3D wizardry, The Walk is true big-screen cinema, a chance for moviegoers to viscerally experience the feeling of reaching the clouds. The film is a love letter to Paris and New York City in the 1970s, but most of all, to the Towers of the World Trade Center.