Robert Zemeckis

Following a press screening of Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk, the opening film at the New York Film Festival, the director said part of what inspired his movie was that Philippe Petit’s real-life walk was never captured on film. While there are photographs of Petit walking on a high-wire between the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974, as explored in the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire, video footage of his audacious illegal performance doesn’t exist. In the film, Zemeckis attempts to turn the thrilling walk into an immersive experience with 3D and IMAX, but some moments, especially ones as majestic as Petit’s walk, should remain an unseen mystery.

Back in Time does something a lot of movie documentaries don’t, combining both interviews with cast and crew and actual fans to give you a more dimensional look at the incredibly beloved and enduring classic. In the trailer for the new Back to the Future documentary, you’ll see regular fans alongside people like Steven Spielberg and Michael J. Fox discussing everything from fun behind the scenes stories to what the film means to them.

It’s the biggest internal dilemma for any modern movie fan – everything you love is slowly, but surely getting remade. And while the new versions don’t wipe the old ones out of existence, it’s the principle of the matter. But we have some good news to fall back on for the time being. Director Robert Zemeckis has assured the public that at least one bonafide classic is safe for the time being: as long as he’s alive, Back to the Future will never get remade.

It’s one those true stories that no one would believe if it didn’t actually happen. In 1974, artist high-wire Philippe Petit walked across a cable strung between the two World Trade Center towers. He didn’t have permission, it was very illegal, and it took an entire team of experts to pull it off. The story was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire and now it has been dramatized in The Walk, which has just revealed a new trailer.

If the title Marwencol sounds familiar to you, that’s because Robert Zemeckis’ next project is a narrative feature adaptation of the 2010 documentary of the same name. That film was a hit on the festival circuit before finding a bigger audience on Netflix Instant (sorry, it’s no longer available), and now Zemeckis will bring that story to an even wider audience with the help of Steve Carell.

Robert Zemeckis has been turning things around with his last couple of films following a trio of CG-heavy features, criticized for their “uncanny valley” quality. First there was the Academy Award-nominated ‘Flight,’ and up next is ‘The Walk,’ the thrilling story of real-life high-wire artist Philippe Petit, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. After that? Zemeckis has already lined up his next project, with mega star Brad Pitt.

This week sees the release of ‘Jupiter Ascending,’ the latest sci-fi adventure from Andy and Lana Wachowski. And while in all likelihood ‘Jupiter Ascending’ will not go down in history as one of the great works of its genre, the occasion of a new sci-fi epic from two of the modern masters of the form seemed like a good time to assess and celebrate the recent highlights of science fiction cinema, which has taken audiences from the furthest reaches of the cosmos to the deepest recesses of the human mind.

If you’ve seen James Marsh’s Academy Award-winning documentary ‘Man on Wire,’ you’re familiar with the story of Philippe Petit, the high-wire walker who performed the insanely dangerous feat of traveling, via tightrope, between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. If you haven’t seen ‘Man on Wire,’ you’ll have a new opportunity to learn Petit’s story when ‘The Walk,’ Robert Zemeckis’ fictionalized version of Petit’s book ‘To Reach the Clouds,’ opens next fall.

Over the last couple of days, rumors have been swirling that the folks at Warner Bros. have offered Christopher Nolan the director’s chair for the adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel ‘Ready Player One.’ While it seems pretty unlikely that Nolan would take the job, a few more names have emerged, also reportedly on WB’s director shortlist: Robert Zemeckis, Edgar Wright (of course), Peter Jackson, and Matthew Vaughn.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is on top of the world with his 'HitRecord' TV show and an upcoming 'Sandman' film with Warner Bros. go-to scribe David Goyer, but now he'll be soaring to new heights. Robert Zemeckis' latest endeavor, a film based on the memoir 'To Reach the Clouds,' has tapped Levitt to play the real-life death-defying man who walked between the World Trade Center towers on a wire.