After reports surfaced of Channing Tatum and Tom Hardy’s interest in the long-in-development Paramount thriller “Triple Frontier,” it now looks like the two are very close to teaming up.

Sources tell Variety that Tatum and Hardy have officially closed his deal to star in the South American crime thriller.

This marks the biggest step toward the movie getting a greenlight since it was announced that Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal were developing the project in 2009. Bigelow has since left the project as director, and was replaced by J.C. Chandor.

The originally script was written by Boal in between his Oscar winning screenplay for “The Hurt Locker” and his Oscar nominated script “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Charles Roven and Alex Gartner of Atlas Entertainment are producing along with Boal.

The film is set in the notorious border zone between Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil where the Iguazu and Parana rivers converge — making “la triple frontera” difficult to monitor and a haven for organized crime.

The pic was originally supposed to be writer Boal and director Bigelow’s follow-up to “The Hurt Locker,” with actors including Tom Hanks, Will Smith, and Leonardo DiCaprio at one point showing interest in joining the ensemble. “Triple Frontier” was put on hold when Bigelow and Boal decided to move on to “Zero Dark Thirty,” with Bigelow eventually removing herself from the director’s chair to focus on other priorities.

The film still has three big roles to fill, but commitments from Tatum and Hardy are good signs that a greenlight is not far away.

Hardy can next be seen in FX’s “Taboo.” He is repped by CAA.

Tatum was most recently seen in the Coen brothers’ “Hail, Caesar!” and just wrapped production on “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Logan Lucky.”

He is repped by UTA and Management 360. Deadline Hollywood first reported the original news of their interest in the project.