English actor Tom Hardy, top right, is reportedly set to play notorious Chicago mobster Al Capone. The rising actor, who will be playing Batman's arch nemesis Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises," has reportedly signed on to star in "Cicero." The film, which Warners is hoping will spawn a trilogy, will focus on the early beginnings of Al Capone, bottom right, the America gangster who ruled Chicago's crime scene in the '20s and '30s.Hardy has been seen in the hit film "Inception." He's also expected to appear in a "Mad Max" reboot.
Warner Bros. is hoping that "Harry Potter" director David Yates will helm the crime epic.
Al Capone was famously played by Robert De Niro in "The Untouchables" (1987), by Rod
Steiger in "Al Capone" (1959) and more recently by Stephen Graham in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Italian immigrants, Capone connected with gangs after being expelled from school at 14. In his early 20s, he moved to Chicago to take advantage of a new opportunity to make money smuggling illegal alcoholic beverages into the city during Prohibition. Despite his profession, Capone became a highly visible public figure. He made various charitable endeavors using the money he made from his activities, and was viewed by some as a modern-day Robin Hood. He died in 1947 in Miami Beach, Fla.
