Director Robert Zemeckis' The Walk -- starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt -- is to have its world premiere in 3-D as the opening night selection of this fall's 53rd New York Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

The screen adaptation of Philippe Petit's memoir To Reach the Clouds casts Gordon-Levitt as Petit, the French high-wire artist who walked between Manhattan's Twin Towers in 1974.

"The Walk is surprising in so many ways," New York Film Festival Director Kent Jones said in a statement. "First of all, it plays like a classic heist movie in the tradition of The Asphalt Jungle or Bob le flambeur -- the planning, the rehearsing, the execution, the last-minute problems -- but here it's not money that's stolen but access to the world's tallest buildings. It's also an astonishing recreation of Lower Manhattan in the 1970s. And then, it becomes something quite rare, rich, mysterious... and, throughout it all, you're on the edge of your seat."

The festival is to run Sept. 25 through Oct. 11.