Rian Johnson has turned out to be a rather divisive filmmaking figure; this writer, and many others, found “Brick” to be one of the most original and promising debuts by a filmmaker in recent years (it made our Best of 2006 list, as it happens), and found “The Brothers Bloom” to be a deeply pleasurable experience. Plenty of others don’t share these views, however, and there are some here who would rather undergo “Marathon Man”-style dentistry than sit through the latter, in particular.
It was announced earlier in the week that Johnson was close to reuniting with his “Brick” star Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the sci-fi thriller “Looper,” which the director has been talking up as his next project ever since the release of “Bloom.” He happened to be sitting down with Cinematical as part of their Movie Club, and the site took the opportunity to ask him about the new project (in case you missed our update, The Hollywood Reporter had apparently printed an inaccurate logline for the project).
Johnson says “‘Looper’ is a time travel movie, set in a near future where time travel doesn’t exist but will be invented in a few decades. It’s pretty dark in tone, much different from Bloom,’ and involves a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. So the target vanishes from the future and the Loopers dispose of a corpse that doesn’t technically exist, a very clean system. Complications set in from there. I can’t wait to make it, I’m a big sci-fi fan and it’s going to be a fun world to play in. Fingers crossed.”
It’s a neat conceit, and we’re glad to see him changing tacks again into a different genre. It’s probably a way off yet, as Gordon-Levitt will shoot the bike-messenger actioner “Premium Rush” first. There’s been surprise in some quarters that Johnson’s managed to get financing for a dark sci-fi film with an untested star, but this is ignoring two points. Firstly, while the tentpoles aren’t going away any time soon, we are also going to see more of the likes of “Cloverfield,” “District 9” and “Zombieland” — smart, star-light genre pictures in the $30 million range.
Secondly, from all the early buzz, including a report by Deadline that the film has started screening, to an outstanding reaction, it seems that “Inception” may launch Gordon-Levitt a few rungs up the career ladder, particularly as an action lead. Either way, we hope “Looper” keeps moving forward.