Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and Tom Hardy lead 'MobLand.' Paramount+ Logo text It’s a MobLand mess.
Tom Hardy has been making headlines over the past week after reportedly being fired from the hit Paramount+ series (though a source who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter says the British star’s fate is yet to be decided).
Hardy has been clashing with producers, THR confirmed, including executive producer Jez Butterworth and others at David Glasser’s 101 Studios, the production company behind MobLand, which is filmed across the U.K.
Much of this irresolution stems from the fact that the streamer has not yet officially renewed the show for a third season — another source close to production tells THR that filming on season three, if greenlit, is tentatively scheduled to begin in September this year.
Related Stories
Movies SXSW London: Michelle Obama, Claire Foy and Piers Morgan Among Latest Speakers Added to Fest Lineup
Movies Andrew Scott, "Busy Boy": On Sparring With Brendan Fraser, Crashing 'The Comeback' and the Greatest Acting Challenge of His Career
“He refused to come out of his trailer for hours at a time,” the source says about Hardy’s on-set behavior on season two, which has spooked producers into rethinking Hardy’s future. The source adds: “He kept the cast waiting, [which is] a power play. Keeping Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and others waiting is career suicide, I would wager.”
In MobLand, co-directed by Guy Ritchie, Hardy plays Harry Da Souza, a fixer for the Harrigan crime family led by patriarch Conrad (Brosnan) and matriarch Maeve (Mirren). Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Jasmine Jobson, Mandeep Dhillon, Geoff Bell, Daniel Betts, Janet McTeer, Jordi Mollà and Toby Jones star in supporting roles.
It remains unclear exactly what keeps Hardy confined to his MobLand trailer. A Puck News story reported that Hardy was also attempting to alter dialogue and provide script notes to Butterworth and creator Ronan Bennett. Clashes with A-listers such as Brosnan and Mirren, however, do not help Hardy’s reputation for being infamously tricky to work with.
The information provided to The Hollywood Reporter about the MobLand situation aligns with the testimony of Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller, who spoke to The Telegraph in 2024 about Hardy’s head-butting with co-star Charlize Theron: “[They’re] two very different performers.”
“Tom has a damage to him but also a brilliance that comes with it, and whatever was going on with him at the time, he had to be coaxed out of his trailer,” Miller said. “Whereas Charlize was incredibly disciplined — a dancer by training, which told in the precision of her performance — and always the first one on set … I’m an optimist, so I saw their behavior as mirroring their characters, where they had to learn to cooperate in order to ensure mutual survival,” Miller continued. “There’s no excuse for it, and I think there’s a tendency in this business to use great performances as an excuse for other disruption that could be avoided.”
THR did not hear back from Hardy’s team or a rep for Mirren when reaching out for comment. Brosnan is apparently traveling and unreachable. We’ve also asked for an update from Paramount Television Studios and 101 Studios. A release date for season two of MobLand has not been announced, but THR took a deep dive into what to do with Hardy’s character moving forward here.
Patrick Stewart is also among those to have publicly discussed working with a withdrawn Hardy, who has also starred in The Dark Knight trilogy, Peaky Blinders and the Venom films. “I didn’t have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie’s villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy,” Stewart wrote in his 2023 memoir Making It So about making Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).
“Tom wouldn’t engage with any of us on a social level,” Stewart wrote. “Never said, ‘Good morning,’ never said, ‘Goodnight,’ and spent the hours he wasn’t needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend.”
MobLand is produced in association with MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios and is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution. MobLand is executive produced by Keith Cox, Nina L. Diaz, Guy Ritchie, Glasser, Butterworth, showrunner Ronan Bennett, Kris Thykier, Ivan Atkinson, Hardy, Dean Baker, Anthony Byrne, Ron Burkle, David Hutkin and Bob Yari.
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe Sign Up
