Director Taika Waititi and actress Scarlett Johansson are set to film the WWII satire Jojo Rabbit in Prague starting next month, and the cast for the movie just got an Oscar-winning boost.
Sam Rockwell, who just picked up an Academy Award for his role in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, has signed on to co-star in Jojo Rabbit, which is slated to begin production on May 28.
Set in World War II Berlin, the movie follows a young boy living under the Nazi regime who creates an imaginary friend to escape the real-world horrors: a version of Adolf Hitler, to be played by director Waititi.
Johansson will portray the boy’s mother, who tests her son’s loyalties when he discovers she’s hiding a teenage girl in their home. Rockwell is set to play the Nazi captain of a Hitler Youth camp the boy is sent to.
Prague is expected to be the primary filming location for Jojo Rabbit, with the city’s well-preserved streets filling in for WWII-era German locales.
Rockwell recently finished production on Adam McKay’s Backseat, in which he portrays George W. Bush opposite Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.
Jojo Rabbit will reunite Johansson and Rockwell, who previously starred together in the Marvel action movie Iron Man 2.
The movie has been described as a passion project for the director, whose previous movie was the hugely successful Thor: Ragnarok. Waititi will direct from his own screenplay.
Filming in Prague will be coordinated by the local agency Czech Anglo Productions.
More information on the project can be found here.
Lead photo: Rockwell at the 2009 Sitges Film Festival via Wikimedia / Ivan Gonzalez
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