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.

The trailer is essentially cut like a heist movie, which makes sense. Although nothing is being stolen, the story of Petit’s death-defying act is about as tense and complicated as Ocean’s 11. A team of people, each of them with a different skill, must outwit the authorities to get away with an absurd plan. Of course, the end goal here is self-expression on the grandest scale possible, not financial gain, which makes this tale all the stranger.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, trying on a French accent for the first time, leads the cast as Petit, with Ben Kingsley playing his mentor. However, the real star of the movie is Robert Zemeckis, a filmmaker who tries to push filmmaking forward in some way with each of his outings behind the camera. With the exception of Flight – Hey, who remembers Flight? – every Zemeckis movie is trying something new, whether it be flashy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump) to subtle (Contact and Cast Away). A lot of elements have to come together to create a compelling movie, but at the very least, this is a director who has a habit of going out of his way to wow us.

Here is the official synopsis:

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.

The Walk opens on October 2, 2015. It will make its premiere as the Opening Night Selection of the 2015 New York Film Festival.

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