Filmmaker Josh Trank is back in a big way with the new film Capone, but it appears the indie drama may not be the end of his working relationship with Tom Hardy. The director behind the smash hit Chronicle notably followed that relatively low-budget film up with 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot, which was plagued by production problems and saw Trank butting heads with the studio’s vision for this superhero property. Capone is something of a reset for Trank—there are no superpowers or high-flying effects, just Tom Hardy delivering a no-holds-barred performance as the titular mobster towards the end of his life.
Trank and Hardy developed a close friendship while making the film, and in a recent interview with Collider’s own Christina Radish, the filmmaker revealed that he’s developing a limited series that would star Hardy and would revolve around the CIA:
“I’m working on this limited series that Tom Hardy is producing and that he’s involved in and he’s very excited about, and I’m excited about, [and it’s] a story that spans decades, from right at the end of World War II and concerning the formation of the CIA, but from a point of view that hasn’t really been seen in a movie or in television before, and is just mentioned in books. It deals a lot with Castro and Cuba, and capitalism versus Communism. It’s really big. Sort of the, you know, capitalism versus communism. It’s really big.”
Trank confirmed that Hardy intends to star in the limited series, which wouldn’t be his first time on the small screen. Hardy co-created, produced, and starred in the FX series Taboo and had a role on the series Peaky Blinders. Hardy also executive produced the FX adaptation of A Christmas Carol and is executive producing another upcoming Dickens adaptation for FX. All of this to say, it’s possible that Trank’s CIA project could find its way to the FX network.
The filmmaker couldn’t say much about this CIA project, but did say if he could wave a magic wand and get one thing greenlit right now, it’d be that one:
“It’s really good. It’s interesting, it’s dangerous and it’s fascinating. The things I’m learning from it, it lends so much big commentary and parallel to how we ended up where we are now, and I’m fascinated by those things.”
Indeed, in hindsight it now seems like Chronicle and Fantastic Four may end up being the outliers in Trank’s filmography, as he’s taking a hard turn into more thematically rich character pieces going forward. Although to be honest, if I’d been through what Trank went through on Fantastic Four, I’m not sure I’d ever want to touch a film of that scale and IP importance again.
Look for our full interview with Trank on Collider soon.
Reporting by Christina Radish.