Netflix is planning a live two-hour special in early 2026 that will follow “Free Solo” climber Alex Honnold as he attempts to scale Taipei 101, Taiwan’s 1,667-foot, 101-story skyscraper, in a rope-less ascent titled “Skyscraper Live.” The company describes the broadcast as part of its push into marquee live events and says the climb would target one of the world’s tallest buildings, ranked 11th globally by height.
The project pairs Honnold’s high-profile brand of free soloing with an urban objective rarely attempted on camera. Netflix says the special will be produced by Plimsoll Productions with Al Berman as showrunner and executive producer, alongside executive producers Alex Honnold, Grant Mansfield, James Smith, Alan Eyres and Jonathan Retseck; Joe DeMaio is set to direct. Brandon Riegg, the streamer’s vice president for nonfiction and sports, billed the broadcast as a “must-watch” global event intended to kick off 2026.
The timing also reflects the platform’s broader live slate, which now includes boxing and NFL Christmas games, signaling a strategy to program real-time spectacles across sports and high-risk nonfiction. For Honnold, whose film about climbing El Capitan earned an Academy Award, the spectacle shifts his well-documented mountain achievements to a steel-and-glass facade that presents different environmental and logistical variables, from surface friction and wind exposure to route planning on man-made architecture.
Local history underscores the stakes. Taipei 101 has previously drawn unauthorized stunts, including a 2007 BASE jump that led to the participant being barred from re-entering Taiwan and tighter building security, and a 2018 incident in which two climbers were fined for attempting to scale parts of the tower. The planned broadcast is framed as a fully produced event rather than an illicit climb, a distinction that carries implications for permitting, crowd control and safety planning around a landmark in a dense urban district.
