With one film project already signed up to do in Dennis Lehanne’s Animal Rescue it looks like filmland have confidence in the pair even before they’ve actually filmed a single minute. But reports are saying Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace have been lined up to star the film adaptation Rob Smith’s Child 44.
THR is reporting the pair are in early negotiations to star in a 1950’s Soviet Stalin era set thriller about a secret police officer Leo Demidov investigating a series of gruesome child murders which he finds connections leading right to the top of the party leadership. Leo soon finds himself disgraced after the government refuse to acknowledge his investigations. Hardy will be down to play that police officer with Noomi Rapace to play his wife according to the book synopsis has a few dark secrets she’s struggling to hide.
Safe House / Snabba Cash helmer Daniel Espinosa is to direct the film, a film he’s been attached to since last summer directing for Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment. Despite the mixed reviews for his English language debut Safe House Espinosa has proven he can deliver smart driven thrillers as Snabba Cash (Easy Money ) have proven and with 2 solid consistent actors like Hardy and Rapace this film potentially could kick start the directors Hollywood adventure. Colour of Money scribe Richard Price has adapted the script for Child 44 which has been in development since 2008 and it was then this film was originally to be directed by Ridley Scott but now he’ll be involved in production of the film.
Animal Care is to be directed by Bullhead (out tomorrow in UK) director Michael R.Roskam is set to start film in March with Child 44 set to start filming May in Budapest, Hungary. Child 44 is first of a trilogy so are you set for a trilogy with Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace? Oh Yes please!
Here’s the books official synopsis:
Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, this stellar debut from British author Smith offers appealing characters, a strong plot and authentic period detail. When war hero Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a rising star in the MGB, the State Security force, is assigned to look into the death of a child, Leo is annoyed, first because this takes him away from a more important case, but, more importantly, because the parents insist the child was murdered. In Stalinist Russia, there’s no such thing as murder; the only criminals are those who are enemies of the state. After attempting to curb the violent excesses of his second-in-command, Leo is forced to investigate his own wife, the beautiful Raisa, who’s suspected of being an Anglo-American sympathizer. Demoted and exiled from Moscow, Leo stumbles onto more evidence of the child killer. The evocation of the deadly cloud-cuckoo-land of Russia during Stalin’s final days will remind many of Gorky Park and Darkness at Noon, but the novel remains Smith’s alone, completely original and absolutely satisfying.
source: The Hollywood Reporter
