Joseph Gordon-Levitt Eyes Rian Johnson's 'Terminator'-Meets-'Witness' Pic 'Looper' & David Koepp's 'Premium Rush'

Joseph Gordon-Levitt continues his streak of being one of the most interesting young actors in Hollywood, with reports revealing today that he’s potentially lining up two action films to be shot back-to-back.

First up on Levitt’s potential plate is writer/director David Koepp’s “Premium Rush.” The project, first announced last fall, is a chase movie where Levitt would play “a New York bike messenger who picks up an envelope at Columbia University, only to be chased throughout the city by a dirty cop desperate to get his hands on it.” Sounds like a lame bike chase movie right? Well apparently, the film is being thought of as a big-budget action film, complete with William Friedkin-esque chase sequences, so we’re a bit curious. That said, while Koepp is a celebrated screenwriter, his trips behind the camera have been a bit dodgy: “Ghost Town,” “Stir Of Echoes,” “Secret Window” — and he’s certainly never done big action sequences before, so it will be interesting to see how this one turns out. Levitt is in final negotiations and a late-summer shoot is in mind.

From there, Levitt could re-team with “Brick” director Rian Johnson for his gestating sci-fi picture “Looper.” The film is “set during a future in which time travel has been invented, with operatives sent back to the present to assassinate criminals. Gordon-Levitt will play a man sent back to kill himself.” Johnson has been talking about this film pretty much since “Brothers Bloom” was in the can and it will definitely be something very different for the indie auteur. He’s previously described the picture as set in an industrial town in Kansas. “The worst crime you can commit 30 years from now is messing with time travel, so the only people who will mess with it are big criminal groups. It’s a weird mixture; it has elements of the first ‘Terminator’ and ‘Witness,’ bizarrely enough.” Um, wow. Other details dug up over the past year of Johnson talking about the project, reveal that it will have events catalysed by a disruptive element that will have traveled back in time from even further in the future. It will also be a “very dark, very violent” depiction of a dystopian future.

Update: Johnson has tweeted about the announcement, and aside from confirming that he’s in talks with Gordon-Levitt, although it’s “early in the process,” says that The Hollywood Reporter got the logline wrong – the plot involves “hit men [who] are sent their victims from crime orgs in the future.”

Given that seemingly sure things like “Anchorman 2” and “Zoolander 2” are getting shut down, you can color us a bit surprised that a sci-fi flick from an indie auteur is getting financing. Johnson’s last film didn’t particularly do gangbusters at the box office (though having the release date continually changed certainly didn’t help). But then again, we previously reported that the time travel aspect will be part of the setup but not an active part of the ongoing story, which we would imagine will keep special effects costs down and the budget within reasonable reach. Either way with “Gravity” shooting this summer, and “Looper” (hopefully) on the way, sci-fi fans have a lot to be excited about. And the best part about these Levitt film announcements? Not one single mention of 3D. Knock on wood.

Meanwhile, it’s heartening to see a young actor strike out and find interesting projects rather than going the easy paycheck route. Levitt is an actor we’re always excited to watch and these projects definitely sound like interesting new path. We’re on board to see where they go.