Joseph Gordon-Levitt Will Play Aerial Artist Philippe Petit For Robert Zemeckis

A few years back, the documentary Man On A Wire chronicled how aerial artist Philippe Petit managed a tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. A stirring and exciting story, the doc charted the almost caper film-like lengths that Petit and his crew went through to infiltrate the Towers and set up the equipment for his unauthorized stunt.

Robert Zemeckis will be adapting Petit’s story into To Walk The Clouds and has tapped Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play the French acrobat. The 3D feature is scheduled to start shooting in May. Zemeckis has co-written the screenplay with Christopher Browne.

Best known as the director of the Back To The Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump and Cast Away, Zemeckis has been spending the last several years working on a number of animated films created through motion capture performances. He has always struck me as one of those directors who are interested in seeing how new technology can be used to tell stories and who he can push technology in directions for the specific stories he wants to tell. The idea that Zemeckis wants to make this in 3D presages that this will be quite the visual treat.

Via Deadline.