MUMBAI: The Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy has been roped on board to star in the Yakuza drama The Outsider which would be directed by Takashi Miike as reported by Deadline, a Hollywood website.

The Outsider would be Miike‘s first directorial English film venture. Miike has more than 60 Japanese-language films to his credit including Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins and Audition. The film would be independently financed by Linson Entertainment and Silver Pictures.

The project is based on an original idea by John Linson, who will also produce it along with Art Linson through their Linson Entertainment banner. Joel Silver, Andrew Rona and Steve Richards will produce through Silver Pictures.

With Hardy‘s credits including The Dark Knight Rises, Inception and the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road he had been chosen for the lead when initially the project was being developed at Warner Bros but Silver acquired the Andrew Baldwin script last November.

The story would be set in the post-WWII Japan which follows an American expatriate who becomes a Yakuza (Japan Mafia) enforcer. Plans are to commence the shooting in Japan early next year.

Silver Pictures‘ long standing deal with Warner Bros deal ended last year, following which it is working on the pre-production of The Gunman, starring Sean Penn and Javier Bardem. Silver‘s thriller Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore, is also slated to release through Universal Studio‘s on 28 February 2014.