Tom Hardy attached to play Al Capone in a David Yates' Cicero

Tom Hardy has attached himself to Cicero , an origin story detailing the rise of infamous gangster Al Capone.

David Yates, director of the last four Harry Potter movies, has been developing the movie at Warner Bros.

Cicero was originally written in the '70s as a TV pilot, but it has been repurposed as a film. There's intriguing talk of continuing Capone's story across two more movies, making this a big commitment for Yates and Hardy.

It sounds like it could be a doozy of a role for Hardy though, as he can play both magnetically charming and unpredictably violent, and it'd be quite a thing to see him develop the character over a trilogy.

But, Hardy is also attached to Mad Max sequel/reboot/spin-off Fury Road , so Yates is considering getting Cicero in the can before his actor starts working on that next spring.

Cicero isn't the only project Yates is circling at WB right now; he's also contemplating a three-part adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand (which was previously been filmed as a TV miniseries in the '90s).

And just in case Yates fails to settle on either of those projects, WB is also lining up comic-book adaptation Fables , which sees grittily-reimagined fairytale characters forced to live in the real world.

You can't blame Warners for wanting to keep Yates on a short leash though, considering the sterling work he has done on Harry Potter since 2007. And Yates deserves respect for not opting to take a very long holiday right now...

Matt Maytum is the former Editor of Total Film magazine. Over the past decade, Matt has worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.