At a press conference at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this morning, Piers Handling, TIFF’s CEO, and Cameron Bailey, its artistic director, announced this year’s opening gala: Looper, an action thriller starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a time-travelling assassin whose bosses hire his older self (Bruce Willis) to assassinate him. In other words: Inception + yippee-ki-yay + a little flux capacitation. The film, which is directed by Rian Johnson of The Brothers Bloom fame, also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels, so it’s a safe bet they’ll all be making red carpet appearances this year. At the announcement, Handling said, “It’s a smart genre film. It’s a young filmmaker, a filmmaker to watch. It’s entertaining and it will help [attendees] get their heads into the rest of the festival.” It’s also not Score: The Hockey Musical, which opened 2010’s TIFF, so there’s that to celebrate too. Check back later today for a full roundup of this year’s galas, special presentations and, of course, the stars attached to all of them.
Correction: Apparently, Joseph Gordon-Levitt stays put in time and his bosses send Bruce Willis back to his time to be killed. Also, time travel plots are extremely confusing.
THIS CITY
Obsessive coverage of Toronto, straight to your inbox