The Toronto International Film Festival is breaking new ground, opening for the first time with a potential Hollywood blockbuster, the hotly anticipated futuristic thriller Looper.

It was just one of 62 movies announced for TIFF Tuesday, a diverse list including new movies from popular filmmakers.

Looper, the action drama about time-travelling hit-men written and directed by Rian Johnson, will bow at the Sept. 6 opening gala. Expect Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises, 50/50), Bruce Willis (Die Hard) and Emily Blunt (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) on the red carpet for the world premiere, an event TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey calls “one of the biggest openings we’ve ever had.”

Bailey and Piers Handling, CEO and director of TIFF, made the announcement as they detailed a lineup of Galas and Special Presentations for the 11-day festival at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

This is only the first announcement of a slate that traditionally exceeds 300 titles. Among the movies announced are Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, with Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz and Javier Bardem; Cloud Atlas, a big-buzz film from Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski starring Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry and Hugh Grant; Dustin Hoffman’s directing debut Quartet; Joss Whedon’s take on Much Ado About Nothing; Ben Affleck’s Argo, based on the true story of Canada’s role in the 1979 rescue of America hostages in Tehran; Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson starring Bill Murray as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Neil Jordan’s Byzantium with Saoirse Ronan; and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.

But Handling and Bailey denied this Hollywood-heavy list marks a new approach for TIFF.

“These are our galas and special presentations, so they are typically our biggest red-carpet films — featuring some of the biggest stars in the world, but not just Hollywood stars,” said Bailey, pointing to the diverse countries represented among gala films, including Canadian directors Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children and Ruba Nadda’s Inescapable.

“It’s a very diverse mix of galas in particular this year, from more than six countries,” said Bailey, with films from countries including Denmark, China, Japan and Italy.

Although the stars expected at TIFF won’t be confirmed until August, it’s a good bet most will be here to support their films, said Handling.

Midnight’s Children stars Anita Majumdar (Murder Unveiled) and Zaib Shaikh (Little Mosque on the Prairie) said they were thrilled to see the movie land a gala slot at TIFF. The film is based on the novel by Salman Rushdie and takes place during India’s partition, in which two infants — one Muslim, one Hindu — are switched at birth.

“To me it’s not even that it’s a gala presentation, but that it’s Midnight’s Children, a love child of Deepa Mehta and Salman Rushdie,” said Majumdar. “I still find myself humbled by the fact that I’m in this movie. It’s such an epic. For it to get a gala presentation at TIFF is nothing short of spectacular.”

For director Nadda, whose movie Cairo Time premiered at TIFF in 2009, having her Damascus-set thriller Inescapable starring Alexander Siddig, Marissa Tomei and Joshua Jackson land a gala slot is “kind of crazy.”

“I’ve been writing this movie for seven years and trying to convince anybody who would listen what Syria was like as a country,” said Montreal-born Nadda, whose father is Syrian. “Nobody would believe me and then all hell erupted there. The Toronto film fest is the biggest in the world and to have my little baby that I have been desperately fighting for to have its premiere here . . . is a great opportunity for a Canadian filmmaker.”

TIFF began breaking with its tradition of opening the festival with a Canadian movie in 2009 with British film Creation. Last year, the opening slot went to rock giants U2 and American Davis Guggenheim’s doc about the band, From the Sky Down.

Bailey said Canadian film lovers shouldn’t feel homegrown cinema is being slighted by the choice of opening-night film.

“Canadian films have pride of place at our festival with Galas and Special Presentations to present the best of our filmmaking at the festival,” said Bailey. “And when there’s an opportunity to open with a Canadian film, we absolutely will.”

Often films that are seeking U.S. distribution at TIFF are reluctant to have the opening-night slot because traditionally American buyers would skip a Canadian first-night film to prepare for the packed weekend and week ahead. But Bailey thinks Looper — and the opening-night party afterwards — will be hot tickets.

“We’ve become a big, international festival and I wanted a film to kick it off that would reflect that scale,” said Bailey.

Looper was a huge hit among fans at Comic-Con in San Diego earlier this month, where clips were screened and the cast and crew appeared for a panel discussion.

Entertainment Weekly reported Emily Blunt said, “I feel this is the best movie I’ve ever been a part of.”

A big lineup of Canadian titles will be announced on Aug. 8. Here are some other movies announced Tuesday:

• The Company You Keep, directed by Robert Redford, starring Redford as a civil rights lawyer and single father who goes on the run when a reporter (Shia LaBeouf) exposes his true identity. Starring Susan Sarandon, Terrence Howard, Anna Kendrick, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper and Nick Nolte.

• Dangerous Liaisons, directed by Hur Jin-ho. This Chinese version of the French story is set in pre-war Shanghai and stars Zhang Ziyi.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

• Great Expectations, directed by Mike Newell. The Charles Dickens classic stars Holliday Grainger, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter and Jeremy Irvine.

• Jayne Mansfield’s Car, directed by Billy Bob Thornton. A story of life in the 1960s in the American south stars Thornton with Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon and John Hurt.

TIFF tickets are on sale at 416-599-TIFF or tiff.net.