Once every month, quality actors sign for a young adult (or young adult-ish) movie adaptation, often without any discernible reason past a paycheck. But, finally, we might have an exception to that unfortunately oft-held rule, for THR inform us that Fox’s adaptation of the best-selling historical novel, The Book Thief, will be led by the high-caliber trio of Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, and Monsieur Lazhar actress Sophie Nelisse.

Brian Percival (Downton Abbey) had, last March, signed to direct, and Michael Petroni completed script has finally let things get on the proper track; shooting expected to commence sometime this month. As with Markus Zusak‘s tome, The Book Thief follows Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nelisse), a late-’30s Munich girl living with tough-but-fair foster parents (Rush and Watson), all the while trying to distract herself from the Nazi forces by stealing and reading books. Living with them is a hunted Jewish man, Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), with whom she shares the stories contained within her books, and making her company, otherwise, is a local boy named Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch).

You’ll be forgiven if no stimulating rush is sent through your veins after reading this story, but the story which follows made for one of the more popular and more acclaimed books of the past several years — so you wouldn’t be foolish to pay some attention. I, having not read the work, am going to invest any reason to care in Rush, Watson, and the drama-rich setting that The Book Thief is sure to offer. (On that note, Percival‘s work with period stories on the popular PBS show count for something, too.) As it stands, we should be willing to see what comes of the effort.

By your count, how is The Book Thief shaping up?