Tom Hardy, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tobey Maguire are pooling together their collective Hollywood influence to make a film about the serious issue of international animal-trafficking. The project, initially thought up by Hardy, is being developed as a Traffic-style multi-plotted tale that will examine how animals are tortured and abused all across the globe.
According to THR, Hardy was initially inspired by Special Forces operatives who traveled to South Africa and other nations as anti-poaching fighters. The trade says that the film will have a wide scope, looking at everything from "the ground war on poachers in the African savanna to how animal material ends up in the fashion houses of Paris." It's unknown at this time if any of the three actors will appear in the movie themselves, but they will serve as producers. Warner Bros. has agreed to house the project and the search is currently on for a writer.
While there's no clear connection established between Hardy and Maguire, the latter has been friends with DiCaprio for years and the two star together in Baz Luhrmann's upcoming adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (which recently had its release date bumped from December of this year to an unconfirmed date in 2013). Hardy and DiCaprio, of course, both starred in Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Inception in 2010. Just last year DiCaprio, who is a lifelong animal rights activist, became a spokesman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare for a campaign to protect elephants.
