Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Looper

1/18/11 - Endgame Entertainment is teaming with Chinese co-producer DMG to make Looper, writer-director Rian Johnson’s time-travel action movie set to star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Xu Qing, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  The film is expected to start shooting in New Orleans next week.  Looper’s plot involves a killer (Gordon-Levitt) who works for the mob of the future. He, along with other so-called Loopers, dispose of people sent from the future. When he recognizes one victim as his future self (Willis), he hesitates, letting the man escape.  Ram Bergman and Lucas Smith are producers, including Endgame's James Stern and Doug Hansen.

12/1/10 – Variety reported that Paul Dano is in talks to join the time-travel thriller Looper, opposite Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Rian Johnson is directing from his own script.  Endgame's Doug Hansen is exec producing. Endgame is fully financing Looper, scheduled to begin production in Louisiana next year.  Looper is centered on a group of killers who send bodies of their victims back in time.

5/28/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that director Rian Johnson said his next project, Looper, involves time travel but doesn't sacrifice character in the name of high-concept storytelling. "It's got time travel in it, but it uses time travel as the setup for a situation," Johnson said in an exclusive interview last month.   "But it's very character-based," Johnson added. "Especially in the second half of it, it definitely goes someplace you wouldn't quite expect it to go. Just like with The Brothers Bloom, that ended up being the part of it that both challenged and excited me the most—the fact that the back half of the script, a large part of it just hangs on the interactions between three characters, without a lot of plot to lean on. That's really, really hard for me, and really challenging, and also exciting. And fun, since it's what I've probably put the most work into."  Looper is set in a present-day world in which a group of hit men are sent their victims from the future.

AlienAlmanac.com  -  Living Among You Since 2004