Movies With Butter

“Looper” is a film that kinda snuck up on me. I started seeing it mentioned in my Twitter feed from film writers as it made its way through the film festival circuit. Through the feed, I knew it was scifi. I knew it involves time travel. And they all raved about it.

I put it in my queue of movies to watch. It then scored 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and became a must-see. I didn’t read any reviews. I tend to not read reviews before watching a movie that I’m anticipating because I don’t want to be spoiled. I only read them afterwards.

I saw “Looper” on Friday. It was as good as I had expected. The story of an assassin trying to kill his older self is intriguing enough. The decision to have Joseph Gordon-Levitt to act and look (through make-up) like a younger Bruce Willis is an original approach, and it worked well. Writer/Director Rian Johnson also takes the story to brave and unexpected places. (You can read a full review by one of our writers,Jeff Giles, here.)

I wasn’t sure what to expect at the box office. The couple of weeks prior to "Looper"'s release had been pretty boring, which was typical of September. Gordon-Levitt also isn’t exactly a draw at the box office yet -- “Premium Rush,” although well-reviewed, didn’t light it up at the box office.

Bruce Willis is unpredictable -- even with action movies -- although he’s been pretty good as part of an ensemble lately (“The Expendables,” “Red”).

“Looper” had collected over 250,000 Facebook Likes towards the opening -- a solid number, but not spectacular.

So when I saw that it made about $7M last Friday, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s good to see a scifi movie with an original approach be rewarded with both critical acclaim and box office success.

A weekend take of $20.8M is great for a film that only cost $30M.

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