Tom Hardy Says Mad Max Sequels are Back On

Tom Hardy was supposed to be the new Mad Max for George Miller. Vehicles were constructed specifically for use in Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa, sets were built and other actors like Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult were cast.

Then the money fell through and Christopher Nolan grabbed Hardy before anyone else could and made him Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

The backers behind the new Mad Max films appear to be hoping the British actor will live up to all that "He's the next big thing" press made of him since nabbing the Batman gig. Hardy tells the Daily Beast he'll be back in training for the role by March and production has moved to Namibia in place of Australia where cameras were long originally planned to roll.

Great an actor as he is (He walked away from Nolan's Inception with the flashiest, most movie-starry performance), it's not a good idea to bask in all this pre-release hype this soon. Gavin O'Connor's wonderful Warrior (the first big release where Hardy was the star) flopped, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy could be a hit stateside but like Inception it's an ensemble piece where he isn't the lead and who the Hell knows what will become of McG's action/comedy This Means Wars next February.

He'll never stop getting work thanks to his acting prowess. But let's not get ahead of ourselves saying he's going to be a movie-star.