Arka Mukhopadhyay
After the critical success of the pair in ‘Brick,’ director Rian Johnson teamed up with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the 2012 time travel science fiction thriller ‘Looper.’ The original story transports the viewers to a dilapidated 2044 Kansas City. The tracking system has made it difficult for criminals to get rid of dead bodies in the future. Therefore, they resort to sending their targets back in time, while the titular “loopers” are contract killers hired by criminal syndicates to eliminate these targets.
Joe is such a contract killer who meets his older self, who has traveled in the past to close the loop. Bruce Willis delivers a dashing performance alongside Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, and Paul Dano. Most of the movie unfolds in a realistic future, and you must know how hard it is to replicate future landscapes. If that is the case, allow us to travel to the places where the movie was shot.
Looper Filming Locations
‘Looper’ was filmed in its entirety in the US, especially in Louisiana, with a few glimpses from China. Filming commenced on January 24, 2011, and was wrapped up by April 1, 2011. Let us now take you to the specific locations where the movie was filmed!
New Orleans, Louisiana
Although the film is supposed to be unraveling in the fictional setting of “Kansas City” (which is a futuristic version of Kansas), most of the shooting took place in and around New Orleans, an iconic Louisiana city located on the Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico. While characterized by its diverse cultures and hectic urban life, the city has also established itself as a busy seat of accommodation for cinematic productions.
Most of the sequences were filmed in the Central Business District of the city. In an early sequence, Joe and Seth arrive in the dystopian Kansas City of 2044, and this scene was filmed along O’Keefe Avenue, between Julia Street and Poydras Street. The CGI in these scenes was kept to a minimum as the director wanted to depict the nitty-gritty reality of the area.
Climactic scenes of ‘Green Lantern’ and ’21 Jump Street’ were also filmed in the exact location. A property located at 219 South Rampart Street at Gravier Street lent the place to be doubled as the club La Belle Aurore in the movie. In another scene, old Joe arrives to rescue the younger Joe from his apartment located on the west side of Picayune Place, at Natchez Street.
Other Locations in Louisiana
The crew ventured out of New Orleans to capture the lush pastoral landscape of the state. They filmed scenes in Napoleonville, a village and the parish seat of Assumption Parish, in southern Louisiana. Additional scenes were filmed in the city of Thibodaux, the parish seat of Lafourche Parish, along the banks of Bayou Lafourche.
Shanghai, China
In the movie, Joe thinks of relocating to France until the older Joe advises him to defect to China instead. France was the location prescribed in the original script, but a little help from Chinese investors propelled the team to change the site at the last minute. The final scene, where Joe casually takes a stroll, was filmed along the Bund, the iconic west bank harborside of the Huangpu River, in Shanghai. The riverbank was also featured in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Empire of The Sun.’
Read More: Looper Ending, Explained
