Paul Dano will be joining the cast of Looper
from writer/director Rian Johnson, and already the cast is an
impressive one that includes the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce
Willis, and Emily Blunt. Louisiana will host the production, which
starts in the new year.

Rian
Johnson is among that small group of super cool new filmmakers that
burst onto the scene with incredible first films and whose paths still
remain unclear. Shane Carruth is another good example, and I believe
Duncan Jones would be a newer addition, but Rian Johnson seemed to be
the most poised to go launch off. His debut film Brick, which is truly one of my very favorite films, is a powerhouse of style and substance that led to his follow-up Brothers Bloom,
a film that is pretty great too, yet didn’t seem to spark audiences or
careers quite as much. And while Carruth has remained on the periphery,
supposedly cooking up an aggressively bizarre sophomore effort a half a
decade after Primer,  and Duncan Jones immediately transitioned from Moon to a bigger budget studio genre pic, Johnson has taken it a bit slower without ever falling off the radar, which has included some recent TV work on Breaking Bad and Terriers. Looper
will be his third film, and it’s one he’s worked on for some time.
Happily, it’s really starting to gear up and you can get tastes of that through his Tumblr blog,
which provided the pictures above and beside. The vague, out-of-context
snapshots are already hinting at a movie with tricks up its sleeves.

The
film centers around a group of “loopers” who assassinate individuals
that have been sent from 30 years in the future. Obviously this is set
up to be a twisty mindfuck of a film, with Levitt and Willis playing the
same character at different ages. The Playlist
has the inside scoop that the newly cast Dano will play a looper
alongside Levitt and will be a key character in the first act.

Frankly,
I don’t wish to know any more than that. I don’t need a trailer, I
don’t need stills, I just need the film in front of me. I will however,
bring you more interesting news about the film, which will certainly
rank high on many people’s most anticipated lists. It’s certainly at the
top of mine.