What’s better than one Tom Hardy? Two Tom Hardys. The actor’s only a couple of weeks away from his big blockbuster test with “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and hopes to shake off the underwhelming “Child 44” with films like “London Road” and Inarritu’s “The Revenant,” but among a bunch of hot prospects, maybe the most promising is a more under-the-radar one?
Hardy quietly went off and shot “Legend” last year — the story of the twin British gangsters Reggie & Ronnie Kray who terrorized London in the 1950s and 1960s — and unlike Peter Medak’s 1990 film “The Krays,” which starred the Kemp brothers from Spandau Ballet, Hardy’s taking on both roles this time around thanks to some VFX wizardry, as displayed in the first teaser trailer for the film, which just arrived.
“L.A. Confidential” writer and “42” helmer Brian Helgeland is the man in charge, and aside from Hardy & Hardy, the cast also includes Emily Browning, “Kingsman” breakout Taron Egerton, Christopher Eccleston, Paul Anderson, David Thewlis, Chazz Palmenteri and Colin Morgan. The teaser’s very, very promising indeed — between this and “Black Mass,” are we about to see the return of the gangster movie in a big way? The film hits UK screens on September 11th (a Venice or TIFF debut first seems likely), and Universal will be releasing the film in the US at some undisclosed point in the near future. 5.14.15 Update: Universal Pictures will distribute Studiocanal, Working Title Films and Cross Creek Pictures’ "Legend," with a platform release in the U.S. that begins on Friday, October 2, 2015.