'Home Alone' Reboot Casts 'Jojo Rabbit' Actor Archie Yates (But Not As A New Kevin McCallister)

Archie Yates, who can currently be seen as the title character's scene-stealing best friend in Jojo Rabbit, has been cast as the young lead of the Home Alone reboot at Disney+. Ellie Kemper (The Office, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Rob Delaney (Catastrophe, Deadpool 2) will play his parents. Read what we know about the movie below.Variety brings word about the Home Alone reboot cast, and they stress that Yates is not playing a new version of Kevin McCallister, the protagonist of the original two Home Alone movies.

Interestingly, this film won't be a straight remake of the original – it has a whole new concept. A report earlier this year suggested this one will be about a husband and wife who go to war against a 9-year-old boy named Max when the boy steals something from them. A casting call said Max needed to be "wise beyond his years and has the personality to easily converse with adults" with an "uncanny ability to relentlessly push their buttons," but also possess "a sense of innocence and a kind heart." Yates checks all of those boxes – his hilarious work in Jojo Rabbit showed that he has wonderful comedic timing, and I can easily see him playing a little scamp in a project like this. There's still no word on exactly what he steals, or who may play the husband and wife team with whom he goes to war.

There's also no word about whether or not Macaulay Culkin's Kevin McCallister character may factor into this film at all, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a small cameo. (He just reprised the character last year for a Christmas-themed commercial.)

The script for the Home Alone reboot is coming Saturday Night Live writers Mikey Day and Streeter Seidel, two of the writers of the popular David S. Pumpkins sketch, as well as the creators of the sketches in which Kate McKinnon is abducted by aliens. Dan Mazer (Borat, Who Is America?) is going to direct, and Hutch Parker (Logan) and Dan Wilson (Patriots Day) are on board as producers. Disney reportedly hopes to start production early next year, which will likely mean we'll see the final product land on the streaming service in time for Christmas in 2020.