**UPDATE: **Hardy is now officially confirmed as part of the cast, according to Variety.
Initially rearing its head as a John Hillcoat project way back in 2010, Western The Revenant passed to director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Biutiful, Babel) twelve months later. After a couple of years of being loosely "attached", Leonardo DiCaprio then signed on to star in April. Now, in a potential Inception reunion, Tom Hardy is in talks to join him.
Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith have adapted the film from Michael Punke’s 2003 novel, which follows an ill-fated fur trapping expedition to chilly 1820s South Dakota. Hunter Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is mauled by a bear in the harsh climate, and his companions leave him for dead. The two men assigned to bury his body then decide tojust rob him and abandon him instead. But Glass recovers, and swears bloody revenge.
Sean Penn had been considering playing one of the thieving burial party, but has since moved on in favour of directing The Last Face with Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem. So we'd assume that his is the role that Hardy is now discussing. The stars look to be aligning, since Hardy's next confirmed gig is the TV series Taboo, which doesn't start shooting until early 2015. It wouldn't do for him to be kicking his heels until then. There's also a pleasing symmetry to his joining a film that was once in the orbit of his Lawless director.
With or without Hardy, however, The Revenant is finally underway after its long gestation period. Iñárritu's cameras are set to roll in September, for a release in autumn 2015. His latest, theatrical comedy drama Birdman, will be out in the States on October 17.
Punke's original novel is currently out of print, but will be re-published by Harper Collins next February.