Actors Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Jack O’Connell (Unbroken), Mia Wasikowska (The Double), and Jack Reynor (Glassland) are all on board for the WWII historical thriller HHHH, according to Variety. The film will be taken to the Cannes Film Festival later this month to seek distributors.
To be directed by French filmmaker Cedric Jimenez (The Connection), the film will follow the largely unknown story of the rise and eventual assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (Clarke), the Nazi officer who was thought to be the mastermind of the “Final Solution.” His assassins were two Czech paratroopers (O’Connell, Reynor) hand-picked by both their own president and Winston Churchill. Pike is set to play Lina Heydrich, Reinhard’s aristocratic wife who first introduced the leader to Nazism, and Wasikowska will portray another member of the Czech resistance.
The script, co-written by Jimenez, his Connection co-writer Audrey Diwan, and David Farr (Hanna), is based on the French novel of the same name by Laurent Binet. This particular story is meant to highlight a part of German and Czech history many audiences may not be familiar with. Another film on the same subject, titled Anthropoid—the name of the Heydrich assassination mission—starring Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey) and Cillian Murphy (Inception), is also currently in the works. The films’ premises are nearly identical, except for the fact that Anthropoid’s protagonists seem to be the Czech soldiers while HHHH‘s will be Heydrich.
For Clarke, a well-known supporting actor in many high-profile films, this role will continue his recent leading actor streak after Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and the soon-to-be-released Terminator Genisys.
This will be the third recent casting for Pike following her Oscar-nominated performance in Gone Girl. Before HHHH is released, she will star in the indie Return to Sender and The Bends.
O’Connell will play the role of a soldier for the fourth time since just last year, when he starred in the war films Unbroken, 71, and Shelter. He will next appear in Jodie Foster‘s Money Monster opposite George Clooney.
Wasikowska, on the other hand, will portray a soldier for the first time. A lot of her recent work has been rooted in the gothic genre, such as her roles in Stoker, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Crimson Peak, out this fall.
Reynor continues to gain recognition after appearances in Delivery Man and Transformers: Age of Extinction. He will be in attendance at Cannes for his next film, the adaptation of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.
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