James Marsh's 2008 documentary Man on Wire was one of the year's most critically acclaimed films, depicting in the style of a heist thriller Philippe Petit's extraordinary high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The film was, in a way, a love letter to the building many of us hadn't seen in full glory since the events of 9/11. Robert Zemeckis will try to do them and Petit's extraordinary achievement justice with The Walk, a 3D spectacle starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the famous tightrope performer.
The first trailer for The Walk sends audiences soaring up the World Trade Center towers, and it looks like Petit's story will be fashioned into an uplifting drama rather than a caper. Gordon-Levitt stars as Petit, a French performance artist who hoped to spread a little joy to the world by walking the tightrope between the Twin Towers at the obvious risk of his own life. To do it he needed a plan a few willing accomplices, played by Charlotte Le Bon (Mood Indigo), James Badge Dale (Iron Man 3), Ben Schwartz (House of Lies), and Ben Kingsley as his mentor.
One of the underlying points of Marsh's film and likely to be part of Zemeckis' is how much things have changed in the decades since Petit made his walk. Something like that can NEVER happen again in today's post-9/11 era, and that in and of itself is pretty sad. This trailer, however, looks terrific. The Walk opens October 2nd 2015.
