The last time they met on screen, Tom Hardy had Gary Oldman beaten nearly to death by thugs, and then made him crawl into a sewer pipe to escape. And then they filmed The Dark Knight Rises (Click here for the rim shot on that dreadful joke). They probably won’t be on much better terms for their next cine-meeting, as Oldman has signed on to investigate Hardy in Child 44.

Daniel Espinosa is directing the thriller, which was adapted by Richard Price from Tom Rob Smith’s novel. Set in 1950s Russia, Hardy will play a member of the Soviet military police who digs into a series of child murders, only for the whiff of suspicion to fall upon his own neck.

Noomi Rapace is aboard to play Hardy’s untrustworthy, chameleonic wife, while Joel Kinnaman will be one of his colleagues, a man with a penchant for murder himself. Oldman has signed a deal to be the head of police, who is looking into both the murders and Hardy’s possibly suspect behaviour.

With Espinosa set to start shooting in June, we firmly expect some crackling stand-offs between the two actors. It’s just the latest assignment for Oldman, who has been scoring jobs all over the place. He’ll next be seen in corporate espionage drama Paranoia before 2014 brings two massive science fiction films with the RoboCop reboot set for February 7 and Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes on May 23. We chatted with the man around the time of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy's release and more recently about his memories of making Batman Begins.