This weekend marks the coming of Rian Johnson’s much-anticipated time travel/sci-fi thriller, “Looper.” I had the privilege of joining several other student-journalists (using a loose interpretation of “journalist” here) in a conference call with Rian Johnson during his press day on Tuesday.
Johnson first talked about his writing process; how he kicked the idea around for a few years before finally writing the screenplay for “Looper.” He loved the idea of the youth versus age dynamic and felt that the time he spent between having the idea and finally putting it on paper helped him to better understand that dynamic. How did the end product movie differ from Johnson’s mental picture?
“Frame 3098 was a little to the right,” he said, laughing. “You have a vision — a vision in your head, but that all changes once you’re on set.”
Johnson said his previous movie, “Brick” (also starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt), had a total budget of $450,000, and he dispelled the current rumor that the budget for “Looper” was $50 million, saying the budget was actually “much less, but I’m flattered by these estimates. It was around $30 million.”
Johnson pointed out that “Looper” was made independently of any studio, but was picked up by Sony Pictures after production. The director said he would be interested in potentially making a movie with a major studio, but currently prefers the small, close-knit team he works with now.
When asked about casting, Johnson revealed that he had written the main role with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who Johnson revealed to be great friends with outside of the studio) in mind the entire time, but struggled to find someone who would believably portray a future version of JGL. Johnson and his staff settled on Bruce Willis because he could “bring all the Bruce Willisiness to the role.” Minor features of Levitt’s were changed in make-up to make him look slightly more like Bruce, and Levitt himself picked up several of Willis’ mannerisms and speech patterns to seem more like a younger version of Willis.
“I thought he would be awesome,” Johnson says. “There’s just something about Bruce Willis.” Hopefully, he was right.
“Looper” hits theaters this weekend — I know I’ll be there. For now, Rian Johnson himself gets five stars for using the phrase “Bruce Willisiness.”
