As soon as the engaging and crush-worthy
Tom Hardy wraps up work on
Mad Max: Fury Road, the actor will be playing infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone for Warner Bros.
David Yates (of
Harry Potter fame) is set to direct
Cicero — the first installment of the studio's possible trilogy. The project gets its title from the town where Capone moved his crime headquarters and family, trying to evade Chicago authorities.
To prep for his role, Hardy has been studying all the old Warner Bros. gangster movies — featuring classic actors like James Cagney (
The Public Enemy), Humphrey Bogart (
The Petrified Forest), and Edward G. Robinson (
Little Caesar — which had perhaps the biggest impact on the
Inception star). "It’s interesting to get them, and a bit of Capone, into the bloodstream … The idea isn’t to remake those films but to get a flavour of them as we explore Capone’s career as a racketeer," he recently told the
Daily Mail. Hardy confirms that nothing is set in regards to a trio of crime dramas, but that "everyone is just talking and exploring" for now.
TV audiences have been watching
Snatch actor
Stephen Graham as Capone during the Prohibition era on HBO's
Boardwalk Empire, but it's been a while since we've had a memorable take on the mobster in cinema. Anthony LaPaglia's part in 2002's
Road to Perdition was probably the last big role that featured the notorious criminal. For now, we'll have to be satisfied with seeing Hardy as Bane in
The Dark Knight Rises. Try to control your disappointment.