Tom Hardy Signs First-Look Deal with NBCUniversal

Actor Tom Hardy is quite busy these days, and apparently he’s decided he needs a couple more projects on his plate: according to the Hollywood Reporter, the English-born actor’s Hardy Son & Baker production company has just signed a two-year first-look deal with NBCUniversal International Television Production.

Hardy and producing partner Dean Baker will work with NBCUniversal’s JoAnn Alfano to developed scripted shows for both U.S. and international audiences.  Hardy and Baker formed their shop in 2012 with an intent to make film, TV and documentaries.  So far, they’ve produced “Poaching Wars” for the UK television network ITV, a documentary series featuring Hardy and are working with Ridley Scott’s Scott Free on the BBC One drama “Taboo.”

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American audiences know Hardy best through his collaborations with fellow Brit Christopher Nolan in “Inception” and as the growling villain Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Most recently, the actor starred in Steven Knight’s “Locke,” a taut, tour-de-force piece of filmmaking that featured on nothing but Hardy driving a car and talking on the phone.  (See our interview with Hardy and Knight this spring.) 

But “Locke” didn’t score at the box office–perhaps because audiences don’t quite know what to make of quasi-experimental one-man shows (see “All Is Lost“) which means that Hardy hasn’t yet proven himself as a box office star.  He’s got two chances to make that mark this year: with “The Drop,” a crime drama set in Brooklyn’s underworld where Hardy’s Bob Saginowski finds himself part of a robbery gone wrong, and “Child 44,” a thriller set in Stalin’s Soviet Union.  Hardy’s also got two movies in post lined up for 2015–“London Road” and “Mad Max: Fury Road”–and is attached to Brian Helgeland‘s crime-pic “Legend,” currently in pre-production.

Hardy hasn’t hurt for work in the last few years, but he’ll remain an industry insider and cinephile fave until he proves himself as a solo marquee draw–or backs himself up on multiple platforms. Hence this NBC production deal.