Rian Johnson, the writer and director of Brick and the forthcoming The Brothers Bloom, will make Looper, a "really violent and dark" science fiction movie as his next project.

Speaking to IGN.com, Johnson compared the film to the original Terminator movie. "It's very sci-fi, but it's very character-based and very concentrated," he noted, adding that "it's like the first Terminator in that time travel is involved with it, but only as a plot device."

Johnson also compared the movie to Philip K. Dick's work, although he commented that a lot of people only think of Blade Runner when Dick's name is mentioned, and that Looper will be closer to Dick's written style. Like many of Dick's stories, Looper will be set in a science fiction reality, but concentrate on the characters rather than the SF concepts.