Tom Hardy to Star in ‘Safe House’ Director Daniel Espinosa’s ‘Child 44’

After breaking out on the international film scene with his Swedish crime thriller Snabba Cash, filmmaker Daniel Espinosa got called up to the big leagues and directed the action hit Safe House last year. Now THR reports that The Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy and Prometheus protagonist Noomi Rapace have joined Espinosa’s next Hollywood effort, a Soviet period piece thriller called Child 44, which is based on Tom Rob Smith’s novel. Hardy and Rapace are already paired up to shoot Animal Rescue together this March, and the acting duo will jump into production on Child 44 immediately afterwards. More below! The plot follows a security guard and former war hero named Leo Demidov (Hardy) who unquestionably believes in Stalin’s rule. But when he investigates a series of child murders, the country strips him of his rank and casts him out in order to preserve the illusion of a crime-free utopian …