''Looper,'' auteur helmer Rian Johnson's time-travel thriller starring Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt, will open the 2012 Toronto Film Festival with a genre groove echoing the populist tone set by 2011 opener ''From the Sky Down,'' Davis Guggenheim's U2 doc.
The TriStar/FilmDistrict pic's prime slot was announced Tuesday morning along with 61 Gala and Special Presentation titles. Among the 39 world preems at Toronto, which runs Sept. 6 , 16, are new films from David O. Russell, Joss Whedon, Neil Jordan, Laurent Cantet and Deepa Mehta.
Ben Affleck's 1970s Tehran escape thriller ''Argo'' (starring Affleck and Bryan Cranston) is among 11 world-preeming Galas, as is Billy Bob Thorton's 1960s Southern father-son story ''Jayne Mansfield's Car'' (Robert Duvall, John Hurt, Kevin Bacon), Liz Garbus' docu ''Love, Marilyn,'' reflecting the Hollywood icon's recently discovered private writings, Shola Lynch's docu ''Free Angela and All Political Prisoners'' and Russell's ''Silver Linings Playbook,'' a fractured family story starring Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, who gets a second spotlight in Derek Cianfrance's ''The Place Beyond the Pines,'' a generational cops-and-robbers drama also starring Ryan Gosling, world-preeming in Special Presentations.
Other world-preeming Galas include Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel ''Midnight's Children,'' Roger Mitchell's ''Hyde Park on the Hudson,'' about FDR (Bill Murray) and the missus hosting the British royals in upstate New York in 1939, Mike Newell's Ralph Fiennes-starring Dickens' adaptation ''Great Expectations,'' Rubba Nadda's Syria-set thriller ''Inescapable,'' Sergio Castellitto's Sarajevo-set Penelope Cruz-starrer ''Twice Born'' and Gauri Shinde's transformation journey ''English Vinglish.''
Mira Nair's Venice-opener ''The Reluctant Fundamentalist'' gets a Gala North American preem, as does Robert Redford's fugitive drama ''The Company You Keep,'' starring Shia LeBeouf; Nikolai Arcel's ''A Royal Affair''; Hur Jin-Ho's ''Dangerous Liaisons''; and Hideki Takeuchi's ''Thermae Romae.''
Time travel also ignites Special Presentations with the world preem of ''Cloud Atlas,'' helmer combo Tom Twyker and Andy and Lana Wachowski's ripple effect, linked-story epic starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Hugh Grant.
Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel ''The Perks of Being a Wallflower'' is one of several U.S. titles world-preeming in the program, as is Stuart Blumberg's sex-addict recovery dramedy ''Thanks for Sharing'' (Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins, Gwyneth Paltrow); David Ayer's L.A. cop drama ''End of Watch'' (Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena); Robert Puccini and Shari Spring Berman's romantic fix-gone-wrong story ''Imogene'' (Annette Bening, Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig); Yaron Zilberman's classical music-driven friendship story ''A Late Quartet,'' starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Joss Whedon's swiftly-shot, text-faithful version of the Bard's ''Much Ado About Nothing''; Noah Baumbach's Greta Gerwig-starrer ''Frances Ha''; Nenad Cicin-Sain's mystery about an artist (Wes Bentley) and his would-be benefactor (Frank Langella) ''The Time Being''; Josh Boone's family portrait ''Writers'' (Jennifer Connelly, Greg Kinnear, Kristen Bell); Ramin Bahrani's father-son struggle ''At Any Price'' (Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron); and Maiken Baird's tennis-star docu ''Venus and Serena.''
U.K. titles world-preeming in Special Presentations include Jordan's dark resort-set mystery ''Byzantium''; Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut about old thesp grudges ''Quartet''; Sally Potter's 1960s teenage friendship story ''Ginger and Rosa''; and docu ''A Liar's Autobiography,'' helmers Ben Timlett, Bill Jones and Jeff Simpson's ''untrue'' story of the late Monty Python player Graham Chapman.
International pics world-preeming in the strand include Laurent Cantet's adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' 1950s-set girl-gang story ''Foxfire''; Francois Ozon's gifted schoolboy drama ''In the House'' (Kristin Scott Thomas); J.A. Bayona's Indian Ocean-set tragedy ''The Impossible'' (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor); Margarethe von Trotta's portrait of the political theorist and Holocaust journo ''Hannah Arendt''; Andrew Adamson's Hugh Laurie-starring island intrigue ''Mr. Pip''; Costa-Gavras' investment-banking drama ''Capital''; Ziad Doueiri's suicide-bombing aftermath story ''The Attack''; Eran Riklis' 1980s-set Lebanon road story ''Zaytoun''; Baltasar Kormakur's ice-and-fire actioner ''The Deep''; Nishikawa Miwa's fraud drama ''Dreams for Sale''; and Lu Chuan's war epic ''The Last Supper.''
International preems include Joe Wright's adaptation of Tolstoy's epic novel starring Keira Knightly, ''Anna Karenina''; Chen Kaige's female-driven rumor-mill story ''Caught in the Web''; Marco Bellocchio's ''Dormant Beauty''; Ana Piterbarg's Viggo Mortensen-starrer ''Everybody Has a Plan''; and Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg's ''Kon-Tiki.''
Terrence Malick's ''To the Wonder'' (Affleck, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams) will receive its North American preem in Special Presentations, as will Matteo Garrone's ''Reality''; Stephane Brize's ''A Few Hours of Spring''; Thomas Vinterberg's ''The Hunt''; Ariel Vromen's ''The Iceman''; Cate Shortland's ''Lore''; Pablo Larrain's ''No''; Takeshi Kitano's ''Outrage Beyond''; Jacquest Audiard's ''Rust and Bone''; Wayne Blair's ''The Sapphires''; and Stephen Fung's ''Tai Chi 0.''
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