Tom Hardy is becoming a big time Hollywood player. The actor who will play the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises next summer has signed on to play gangster Al Capone in the biopic Cicero. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 & 2 director David Yates is set to lens Cicero for his first non-Harry Potter assignment since the 2005 HBO film The Girl in the Cafe.
Cicero will tell the origin story of Al Capone from his days growing up in Brooklyn, New York to his rise as the head of the mob in Chicago. The screenplay was written by Walon Green who penned Sam Peckinpah‘s legendary western The Wild Bunch in 1969. First Showing reported back in September of 2010 that Cicero will be a throwback to gangster movies of the 1930’s.
Tom Hardy made his film debut in 2001’s Black Hawk Down but didn’t really break through until 2009 with the powerhouse indie flick Bronson. Hardy followed that critical darling with a blockbuster supporting role in the Best Picture nominee Inception. Hardy will next be seen in the Ultimate Fighting drama Warrior, due in theaters on September 9th.
Hardy will then be back in theaters in November with the spy remake Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and in December with the John Hillcoat crime flick The Wettest County in the World. Tom Hardy is currently in production on his biggest role to date, playing Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and then IMDB has Hardy taking on the iconic role of Mad Max.
As for director David Yates, while he waits for Hardy to finish work on The Dark Knight Rises, he can busily count the millions of dollars he’s making from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 which opens July 15th and is expected to break box office records. Yates has also been linked to an adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Stand and the comic series Fables. No deals for either picture have been sealed as of yet.
As for Cicero, no start date has been announced as of yet.