Tom Hardy commented recently that he’d love to play Frank Castle aka The Punisher for Marvel. Someone sign him up right now….
As he gets ready for the release of his next big budget action flick ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ to open on May 15, Tom Hardy has been making the media rounds for promotion when the subject of doing a superhero movie came up.
Hardy was originally signed on to star as Rick Flagg in the upcoming ‘Suicide Squad’ film from director David Ayer, but because of his schedule with the movie ‘The Revenant’ alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, he was unable to take the part.
Now it seems Hardy is more than willing to do a comic book movie, especially if the character interests him. The one at the top of his list is ‘The Punisher’.
“I want The Punisher… I want The Punisher, or Splinter Cell, I want something. I don’t know what I want,” Hardy said. “Frank Castle, I would love it. Is that him, isn’t it?”
Hardy went onto joke that he’s only 5’9″ so playing The Punisher might be a stretch — then again Robert Downey Jr. is only 5’9″ and he plays Iron Man.
Marvel actually owns the rights to The Punisher for film or TV but they haven’t opted to introduce the character into the cinematic universe as of yet. Hardy would certainly be a brilliant choice considering the acting chops he’s packing, but whether or not Marvel is interested in pursuing him for the role or doing a Punisher movie at all remains to be seen.
The Punisher has appeared on screen a few different times in recent history including the very forgettable movie starring Dolph Lundgren, the criminally underrated film with Thomas Jane and a third movie called ‘Punisher: War Zone’ with Ray Stevenson playing the title role.
Actually, The Punisher could be a great addition to the current lineup of Marvel TV series on Netflix, although chances are Hardy isn’t going to do a full time TV show any time soon (although he did guest star for part of a season on the BBC breakout series ‘The Peaky Blinders’).
That said — Marvel make the call! Hardy is one of the best actors out there and the fact that he’s interested in doing a comic book movie should have Kevin Feige or some executive on the phone to his agent pronto!
H/T: Collider
