‘Mad Max Fury Road’ star Tom Hardy set to join Johnny Depp in ‘Black Mass’
Tom Hardy is in early talks to replace Joel Edgerton as Johnny Depp‘s co-star in Scott Cooper‘s true-life drama Black Mass, according to a report by Deadline.
Depp will play James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, a South Boston mob boss and former prisoner of Alcatraz prison. Bulger’s crimes began in the 1950s and Hardy would be John Connolly, Bulger’s childhood friend who later became an FBI agent – forever connected to Whitey and his crimes.
Black Mass is based on a 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story Of An Unholy Alliance Between The FBI And The Irish Mob, that was written by ex-Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, Whitey’s recent arrest back in 2011 and sentencing means we’ll get an updated account rather than simply an adaptation.
The film’s script was written by Mark Mallouk (Rush) and Jez Butterworth (Fair Game), and it is scheduled to start filming in May.
Hardy stars in Child 44 and Mad Max: Fury Road and is set to play Elton John in the biopic Rocketman. He starred as the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and co-starred in Christopher Nolan’s Inception.