Here's a combination that could prove to be combustive either in terms of a great result or it blowing up in everyone's faces: Tom Hardy has agreed to star for Fantastic Four director Josh Trank in Al Capone tale Fonzo.
Hardy will play the infamous gangster at the age of 47, near the end of his life. After nearly a decade in prison, the former Prohibition-era bootlegger and leader of the Chicago Outfit organized crime mob is suffering from dementia and experiencing memories of his vicious glory days bleeding into the present.
Hardy, of course, has form playing crime figures in film such as Bronson and Legend. As for Trank, he found success with Chronicle, then butted up against studio expectations and suffered a flop with the four superheroes, while losing out on one of the Star Wars stand-alone movies. Fonzo, which he also wrote, feels like his chance to climb back out of the bad news around that last job.
"This is the kind of project we want to do: original, distinctive cinema based around something our partners can market and distribute around the world," producer Alex Walton tells Screen International. "You have a brand in Al Capone and this is a fresh take on the gangster genre. Tom Hardy is perhaps the only guy who could do this, so it’s perfect casting. It’s The Shining meets Black Mass – a commercial, interesting and haunting film." Hardy will be back on our screens in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, due on 21 July next year.