FX lands Tom Hardy for 19th Century adventure series

The folks at FX aren't afraid of taking chances or going after top talent. The channel has ordered an adventure series starring and created by Tom Hardy (with his father Chips Hardy) called Taboo. Set in 1813, the series follows adventurer James Keziah Delaney as he returns from Africa with a fortune in diamonds, determined to build his own shipping and trade empire against the East India Company, after the death of his father.

With Sons of Anarchy and Justified concluding, the channel is developing new content to maintain their edgy appeal to the core demographics. In addition to their recent success with Fargo, FX is also developing Hoke with Paul Giamatti as a Miami detective in the mid 1980's (from the novels of Charles Willeford), The Bastard Executioner, from Sons creator Kurt Sutter, and series versions of From Hell and American Psycho, which will be given the Fargo reinvention treatment.

FX honcho John Landgraf is planning quite the slate. Here's hoping period sagas like Taboo and Bastard Executioner deliver better than The Strain, which quickly grew tiresome, despite Corey Stoll and Guillermo del Toro. Taboo is executive produced by Ridley Scott and written by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things), and should debut in 2016.