Well, this is interesting. According to Puck, Tom Hardy is on the skids with a hit streaming show he helped put on the map, Paramount+‘s “MobLand.” The outlet reports that the actor clashed with show producers Jez Butterworth and David Glasser on Season 2 shoots, with Butterworth allegedly so fed up with Hardy’s behavior that he threatened to quit. Paramount instead dropped Hardy, although the actor had a mutual option for Season 3, so he could’ve left on his afford.
That’s a whole lot of rumormongering before the premiere of a new season of one of Paramount+’s most popular original series. What happened, exactly? Puck’s intel is that Hardy was repeatedly late to set and very finicky with various changes he wanted to make to scripts and dialogue. But he was reportedly also unhappy that a show centered on his star power was now more of an ensemble venture, with Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Paddy Considine, and other cast members receiving more screen time. Now Hardy is off the show entirely, so Season 3, if it happens, will need to lean on its other cast, like Toby Jones, Johnny Flynn, Janet McTeer, and Ophelia Lovibund.
Then again, “MobLand” is a series set in the British underworld, where plenty of people drop like flies. That means there are plenty of ways for creator Ronan Bennett and his writing team to adjust the show’s course without Hardy. Still, this story, if it is indeed true, is a bit of a surprise. Hardy did plenty of heavy lifting in “MobLand” S1, and his fixer Harry Da Souza was arguably the central node of the Harrigan crime family power grid for that season’s story. Maybe the new season shakes that formula up, and in a way that Hardy didn’t appreciate.
Despite the news, “MobLand” Season 2 premieres this Fall on Paramount+; stay tuned for an official release date and a trailer sometime this summer. And, yes, Guy Ritchie fans, the prolific director is still involved with the show: he directed some of Season 2 and serves as an executive producer.
