High-Rise star Tom Hiddleston is to reunite with director Ben Wheatley for Hard Boiled, an adaptation of the early-90s comic-book series by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow.

Hiddleston is down to play Nixon, a seemingly deranged tax collector in a near-future dystopian Los Angeles. He recently completed work on Thor: Ragnarok (the third in the series) and Kong: Skull Island. Wheatley’s most recent project is Free Fire, an action comedy set in a warehouse, which looks to be his most mainstream film yet.

An adaptation of Hard Boiled has been in the works at least since 2001, when Warner Bros hired David Fincher as director and cast Nicolas Cage in the lead role. In 2008, Miller – who was buoyed by acclaim for his co-direction of Sin City – said that he was planning to direct any adaptation himself. However, his 2008 adaptation of The Spirit, to which the Guardian awarded one star, proved less popular.