Earlier this week, Puck News reported that after clashes with actors and producers on set, Tom Hardy was fired from the huge hit series MobLand on Paramount Plus, a show that he leads.
Now, Variety is reporting that it can confirm he has not been fired from MobLand, and that negotiations are ongoing in terms of how to keep him around.
The original report said that Hardy was hours late to production, changed script notes and dialogue, didn’t like the big-name ensemble cast that included Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan and sparred with producer Jez Butterworth.
Now, while none of those items are specifically disputed, and some have actually been confirmed, the claim that he’d been fired as a result of all this has seemed to have been shot down. At least according to Variety sources who said:
“Tom was not fired, the door is not closed for Season 3 and things are being worked through creatively.”
“I’m sure [producer] Guy [Ritchie] is probably pushing [producer] David Glasser to make it work,” a production source told Variety. “Guy likes working with Tom.”
Further explanation says that “He’s difficult, but he’s a movie star,” and the other side of the coin was explained that Hardy was upset with late scripts, and he had “sound” ideas for changes.
Some in the industry speculate that this is some sort of PR war between “camps” of various actors or producers, as sometimes seen with issues like this, and no one is officially responding for comment, all of this done through backchannel trade sources.
The goal for Paramount and Ritchie, especially, is to make all this work without needing to write out or recast Hardy’s lead character for season 3, since season 2 was already filmed when these controversies broke. MobLand is one of Paramount’s biggest hits ever, breaking its global series launch record with 26 million viewers in its first season. Season 2, with Hardy on board, could retain or surpass that, but they wouldn’t want the show to be harmed by his absence in season 3.
The saga certainly doesn’t seem resolved if they’re still working through it, but season 2 is in the can and is supposedly launching sometime in the fall of 2026. This comes amid Paramount’s attempt to buy Warner Bros. and its streaming services, like HBO Max, where MobLand could become a powerful series across two brands that are destined to merge someday.
So, we’ll see if the “movie star” can rein it in and come to some understanding with his producers, but it may take a while yet.
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