Yahoo Movies Tom Hardy to Star in Bosnian War Movie
Tom Hardy (Photo: Jo Davidson/SHM/Rex/Shutterstock)
By Dave McNary, Variety
Tom Hardy will produce and star in the Bosnian War movie My War Gone By, I Miss It So, Variety has learned exclusively.
The film is based on the 1999 book of the same name by Anthony Loyd, an English journalist and war correspondent. Gavin O’Connor is attached to direct and produce, along with Scott LaStaiti, who launched Palantir Group as an entertainment fund last year.
My War Gone By, I Miss It So is Loyd’s personal account of the Bosnian War, and alternates between his experiences in Bosnia and personal reflections of his time in the British army, his parents’ divorce, his estrangement from his father, and his heroin addiction.
“My War Gone By is a brutal yet sensitive story which addresses both the nature of addiction and the experience of war,” Hardy said. “I was struck by Anthony’s work and words, experiences, and for me his is an important voice and an important book.”
Loyd was born into a distinguished family steeped in military tradition, raised on stories of wartime and ancestral heroes. He longed to experience war from the front lines, so he left England at age 26 to document the conflict in Bosnia, where he witnessed a lethal struggle among the Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnian Muslims. Addicted to the adrenaline of armed combat, he returned home to wage a personal battle against substance abuse.
Hardy is currently starring in Dunkirk as a Royal Air Force pilot. O’Connor’s credits include The Accountant, Jane Got a Gun, Warrior, and Pride and Glory.
“Anthony’s memoir was love at first page — a portrait of war like I’d never read before,” O’Connor said. “An up-close-and-personal account of a heroin junkie reporting from the front lines of Bosnia — the bloodiest conflict Europe has witnessed since the Second World War — who uses the high of war to kick his drug habit. It’s a book written with both fists. It’s Anthony’s Apocalypse Now. I feel privileged and honored for the opportunity to bring the book to the movies.”
LaStaiti teamed with Gregory Bailey to launch Palantir Group last year as an entertainment fund established to acquire and develop high-profile intellectual property for film and television. Current Palantir projects include Emma Donoghue’s” Frog Music,” which she is also adapting, with LaStaiti producing alongside Alison Owen and her Monumental Pictures.
“Anthony’s book is haunting and heartfelt, and shows humanity at its highest and lowest,” LaStaiti said. “I couldn’t ask for better creative collaborators than Gavin and Tom, and I’m thrilled to be partnered with them on this project.”
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