Scarlett Johansson is in the final stage of talks to star in Taika Waititi’s upcoming WWII-era film Jojo Rabbit, according to Variety.
The Fox Searchlight film is about a 10-year-old boy in Hitler’s facist regime who, unable to understand and deal with the realities of his situation, invents an imaginary friend to help him cope. Johansson would play the mother of the young boy, whose loyalties are tested when he discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish boy in their home. The role of the young boy has yet to be cast.
The Wrap previously reported that, in addition to writing and directing the film, Waititi will play the imaginary friend who is inspired by Hitler. As The Wrap describes it, the character is not a sympathetic version of Hitler, but rather an attempt on the part of the boy to imagine a version of his father. Bombarded with Nazi propaganda, the boy imagines a figure who is a combination of his father and Hitler.
“It’s my version of… a lonely boy’s best version of his hero, which is really his dad,” Waititi told The Wrap.
Jojo Rabbit is tentatively slated to begin production in May. Here’s the official synopsis:
Jojo Rabbit, by Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, Hunt for the Wilderpeople), blends his signature humor, pathos, and deeply compelling characters in a World War II satire about a ten-year-old boy who, ridiculed by his peers and misunderstood by his mother, can’t quite figure out how to fit in. As the naïve young German struggles to understand his place in an increasingly Fascist regime, he resorts to an imaginary friend who can offer advice and help him cope.
More as we hear it…