Ah, what it must be like to be popular and in demand… Tom Hardy certainly knows that feeling at the moment, since his big career boost with Bronson and the exposure he got by being one of the best things about Inception, he’s been offered just about every part under the sun. And now Universal is intent on tracking him down to play Eric, the huntsman in Snow White and the Huntsman.
Ads director Rupert Sanders is in the big chair for the film, which mixes a buddy movie with the traditional fairytale. The evil queen hires a tracker in a fit of jealousy to find and kill her runaway stepdaughter because she’s discovered that Snow is indeed the fairest of them all. So far, so standard, but then the twist arrives: in this version, the huntsman sticks with the heroine to help her escape and the pair goes on the run together. There's no word on a Snow White yet, but Sanders and the producers are said to be sweeping the UK in a hunt for an unknown to snatch the role.
According to The Playlist, Hardy is close to signing on the dotted for the movie, and if he does lock in a deal, he might be joined by a big star in the villainess role, since the studio is apparently also itching to have Angelina play Ravenna, the beauty-obsessed queen. But it remains to be seen whether she’ll have time in her schedule or whether her fairytale needs will be filled by Tim Burton’s still-developing take on Maleficent. Also, they'll then face the rather tricky casting challenge of finding someone who's manifestly better looking to play Snowy herself.