Tom Hardy Joins BBC Series 'Taboo' and Musical 'London Road'; Plus Two 'Locke' Trailers

Between The Drop (featuring James Gandolfini's final performance) and Cold War era thriller Child 44, it was already going to be a year full of chances to check out Tom Hardy on screen. But he's also got perhaps his most intriguing film of all right around the corner, the single-location drama Locke, penned and directed by Steven Knight. Two nifty trailers have been released for it, in order to help get the word out about the small-budgeted film, plus news on two new projects that will keep Hardy plenty busy.

First up, Hardy will star in the BBC series Taboo, which Ridley Scott is producing and Knight will script. The 8-episode series, set up at BBC One, has Hardy as adventurer "James Keziah Delaney who returns from Africa with 14 ill-gotten diamonds and seeking to avenge his father’s death. Refusing to sell the family business to the East India Company, he sets out to build his own trade and shipping empire and finds himself playing a dangerous game with two warring nations, Britain and America." Production on Taboo begins next January.

And Hardy, who is already doing an Elton John biopic, has taken on another musical, this one an adaptation of stage musical London Road. It's a small role, one that sees him co-starring with Olivia Colman. Rufus Norris will direct and co-wrote the script "about how a community in Ipswich was shattered when a serial killer murdered five women, and how it coped with the ensuing frenzy." Hardy will take the role of taxi driver Mark who "sings about a rather morbid passion he enjoyed as teenager."

And finally, here are two thirty second trailers for Locke, which one of which flows in reverse time. Hey, they gotta spruce this thing up somehow, because the film is literally Tom Hardy driving a car for 90 minutes. Turns out it's still pretty compelling stuff (review to come), as he plays a man racing to fix his personal and professional life after a major screw up. The less said about the details the better. Locke opens on April 25th.