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Brick's Rian Johnson Going Sci-Fi Next With Looper

by Alex Billington
August 8, 2008
Source: IGN

A few weeks back we featured the quirky trailer for Rian Johnson's latest feature, titled The Brothers Bloom, a crime comedy of sorts. It looked pretty good but might not compete with his first feature film, an indie gem title Brick, a high school noir that I still regard as one of the best films of the past 10 years. As is always the case in Hollywood, we're always thinking about every filmmaker's next movie even if they're not done with their current movie. With Rian Johnson, we're already talking about his next sci-fi project before Brothers Bloom even hits theaters, but Bloom will get its time when it debuts in October. IGN spoke with Johnson and learned that his next project is a sci-fi flick titled Looper, that will be "really violent and dark." If you've seen Brick, you'll know that anything Johnson is working on is exciting.

Johnson explains that Looper is "sci-fi, but it's very much -- well, I think people toss out Philip Dick sci-fi when they mean 'small, dark' sci-fi. Although, when I think of Philip Dick's books, it's something very different. I think people are confusing it with the movie Blade Runner." So if I understand this, he's referring to Philip K. Dick, but saying that Looper is not really like any of Dick's work. He continues: "To me, it's a lot more like the first Terminator. It's very sci-fi, but it's very character-based and very concentrated. It's very different from the Terminator movies, but it's like the first Terminator in that time travel is involved with it, but only as a plot device." With a title like Looper, I'm imagining a film where some guy gets caught up in some sort of multiple time loops - anyone with me?

Even if you're not that familiar with Rian Johnson, you should take an interest in Looper and his work. Although the trailer for Brothers Bloom didn't exactly look too amazing, Brick is a phenomenal film and I've heard that Brothers Bloom is great as well. I definitely appreciate indie directors who explore genres for the fun of it and I hope Johnson eventually finds his niche, but for now I'm excited to see both Brothers Bloom and Looper. I don't even really know what the plot is, but considering I'm a sci-fi nut and a big Johnson fan, I'm all for it. This even reminds me of some crazy episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but I'm not going to venture into that territory unless I really need to. For now, we'll wait to hear more about Looper and keep our eyes on Brothers Bloom this October. Thoughts?

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