The Circuit

Since it unfolds like an engrossing Hollywood caper film, some wonder whether James Marsh's doc "Man on Wire" is ripe for remaking.  Its subject, Philippe Petit who walked the WTC Towers on a tightrope in 1974, has published his story as a biography and a children's book. 

The Circuit hears the big screen rights to the story are with Robert Zemeckis, who may animate the story a la "Beowulf."

At Sundance, Petit answered questions after a screening:

I haven't changed. I'm still a struggling artist. I still fight for my books to published, my films to be produced... I have many hats. I'm still a street juggler. Nothing has changed. I'm still fighting for what I want to do.

As a street juggler I draw a circle of chalk on the sidewalk, and I juggle and pass my hat around before the police come and arrest me. But I am stupid. I should put a little clipping there saying "I am the man who walked the Towers." I'd make double the money. I refuse to do that because it's not nice, it's not pure.

I should not share those thoughts [on 9/11] because the Towers were so much a living entity growing inside of me, becoming married by the smile of my curve, that when they died something so alive was pulled out of me. But I have no right to talk about that when actually in their death they took out thousands of lives. It's something very intimate.

Here's the Q&A: