40 years after his daring stunt, Philippe Petit is still front and center.

On August, 7 1974, the Frenchman ran a tightrope between the Twin Towers and began the jaw dropping walk, 1350 feet (400m) above the streets of downtown Manhattan. On the ground, passers by were in awe at the spectacle of the daredevil walking back and forth a total of eight times, unharnessed,  for 45 minutes.

“Le coup” as he called it, also generated a reaction by the NYPD who were ready and waiting when he eventually came down. In exchange for a performance for Children in Central Park however, his charges were dropped and his rise to fame continued.

After marking the 40 year anniversary of his exploit at the LongHouse reserve in the Hamptons on the 7th of August, Mr Petit will be the topic of a biopic retracing his epic journey, from years of preparation to enacting his perilous triumph.

The film, starring Joseph Gordon Levitt as Philippe Petit and directed by none other than Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Back to the Future…), is expected to be released in October of 2015. In the meantime, we highly recommend “Man on Wire”, an award winning documentary about the vertiginous Frenchman.