Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon are going to play brothers

Tom Hardy—who starred in the original production of Brett C. Leonard’s play The Long Red Road, back in the days when the much-in-demand actor still had time to dick around with live theater—will reprise his leading role in a movie version that Leonard is adapting and co-producing with Paul Neeson and Richard Fant. Hardy plays a man living on an Indian reservation, hiding out from his past and slowly drinking himself to death. Fellow in-demand character actor (and specialist in bug-eyed loons) Michael Shannon will play the hero’s brother, a piece of casting that may or may not help explain Hardy's decision to crawl inside a bottle. The Long Red Road premiered at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in 2010, in a production directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman; it's unclear yet whether Hoffman will be involved in the movie version.