Taika Waititi To Play (checks notes) An Imaginary Adolf Hitler In JOJO RABBIT
According to The Wrap, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi will both star in and direct Jojo Rabbit, a film whose logline I am having trouble summarizing in a single sentence. Let's just go straight to Fox Searchlight's official synopsis and work backwards from there:
"JOJO RABBIT, by Taika Waititi (THOR, 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."
OK, so, a Taika Waititi-style dramedy set in Germany during WWII doesn't sound that crazy. And who will he be playing in the film?
"Waititi’s (Adolf) Hitler is an imaginary friend to the protagonist, a 10-year-old boy who is desperate to join the dictator’s ranks during World War II. The film won’t include a sympathetic depiction of the actual Adolf Hitler — no surprise there. Rather, the imaginary Hitler in the film will be the invention of a boy who misses his dad, and, confused by Nazi propaganda, imagines a figure who is a combination of his father and the führer."
I'm sorry, what?
"Waititi’s (Adolf) Hitler is an imaginary friend to the protagonist, a 10-year-old boy who is desperate to join the dictator’s ranks during World War II. The film won’t include a sympathetic depiction of the actual Adolf Hitler — no surprise there. Rather, the imaginary Hitler in the film will be the invention of a boy who misses his dad, and, confused by Nazi propaganda, imagines a figure who is a combination of his father and the führer."
OK, yeah, that's what we thought you said, The Wrap.
Some of you might already be familiar with Jojo Rabbit, the script for which appeared on the Black List all the way back in 2012. The rest of us are only just finding out about it, and so far the BMD staff's divided as to whether or not this idea is really that crazy.
On the one hand, Waititi has more than earned our trust as a filmmaker, and his instincts as a comedian are nigh unimpeachable. We're sure he knows what he's doing. On the other hand, we're talking about a movie where Taika Waititi is going to play a goofy version of Adolf Hitler (The Wrap says they have an official description of the character as "not the Adolf we know and hate" but "goofy, charming" with "a child-like naivety") who's the imaginary friend to a boy who longs to join the Nazis. And it's going to be released by Fox Searchlight, which is in the process of being purchased by Disney. I submit to you that all of that information, in concert, is undeniably crazy.
Jojo Rabbit is currently eyeing a May start date for production. Needless to say, we are very curious to see where this particular project takes us.
