High Wire Act

J.J. Abrams is in line to produce a feature film version of Colum McCann's award-winning novel "Let The Great World Spin" says The Hollywood Reporter.

The story is built around Philippe Petit's real-life "artistic crime of the century" -- when the Frenchman illegally walked a tightrope strung between the World Trade Center towers in August 1974. The event was covered in the award-winning 2008 docu "Man on Wire".

"Spin" however follows an ensemble cast of characters struggling throughout New York including a young Irish monk living among prostitutes in the Bronx; a group of mothers mourning their sons, killed during the Vietnam War in a Park Avenue apartment; and a 38-year-old grandmother walking the streets with her teenage daughter.

McCann will pen the adapted screenplay himself.

Abrams is also in talks to develop a film based on the animated series "Samurai Jack"...