On May 21, Puck News reported that Oscar nominee Tom Hardy was “booted off” the series “MobLand” after “clashes with producers Jez Butterworth and David Glasser, among others.” The story painted Hardy as a diva who was “late to set a bunch” and who “expressed his displeasure that a series initially built around him was increasingly becoming an ensemble showcase for Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and other co-stars.”

But sources tell Page Six Hollywood that Hardy declined to return for Season 3 following a fraught second season of the Paramount+ series. (The producers even approached Colin Farrell and Idris Elba as possible replacements after Hardy indicated he was moving on, we hear.)

Sources say Season 2 of the hit series became a perfect storm, involving an actor unaccustomed to the frantic rhythm of television and a red-hot writer suddenly so in demand that he was stretched thin. Season 1, which was overseen by creator and showrunner Ronan Bennett (“Top Boy”), ran smoothly, by all accounts. But then Bennett was replaced as showrunner by Butterworth, who has many outside projects competing for his attention, including Sam Mendes’ Beatles anthology.

Hardy asked to see as many scripts as possible so he could build his character for the season. And Butterworth, who also served as writer, let Hardy know it doesn’t really work like that in television. The cast, including Hardy, sometimes needed to learn their lines the day of production, which resulted in Hardy staying in his trailer for extended periods. That led to multiple delays and a swelling budget, which put the producers, namely 101 Studios, in a state of panic.

“You have an A-plus writer who’s got a lot of power and who has a methodology of ‘I don’t know where this is going’ and then an A-plus actor who is used to knowing the entire arc of a character in a story,” says a “MobLand” source. But, “It was all very passive-aggressive and British. It wasn’t even a feud.”

As the difficult season came to a close, Hardy signaled that he didn’t want to return for a Season 3, but committed to fully promote the show. We hear that the producers then went to Farrell to replace Hardy, but he passed. They then went to Elba, who was considering it when the news broke that Hardy had been fired, even though he hadn’t really been shown the door.

“You can’t be fired if you have a two-year deal,” says another insider. But then the “MobLand” saga got hijacked by parties with a very different agenda.

An X user with the handle @Gwared posted on May 26: “I have some gossip about the Tom Hardy/Helen Mirren/Mobland thing. Whilst discussing Londoners she mentioned how ‘people don’t realise the hurt being caused by the Marches for Palestine’ and Hardy laughed in her face and left the table some of the cast/crew were sat at.”

The post was viewed by 1.1 million users and started to gain traction, even if it had no basis in fact.

A blue-check user with the handle @adamemedia1 chimed in the following day in definitive fashion: “HELEN MIRREN GOT TOM HARDY FIRED. The disgusting terrorist who fondly remembers ‘Arabs thrown out of their homes’ got Tom Hardy kicked off the show Mobland because he’s against ethnic cleansing. Free Palestine. F–k Helen Mirren. Mobland is dead. Don’t watch another episode.”

The post received a million views. Both missives were unverified and debunked by our on-set sources. If that all sounds like social media noise, it seemed to have some real-life consequences. A video from 2025 showing Mirren accosted on the street suddenly resurfaced as an activist with a camera called her an “evil Zionist bitch.” (Mirren is not Israeli, but has played Golda Meir in “Golda” and a Mossad agent in “The Debt.”)

For those involved with “MobLand,” the new Middle East tensions yarn was even crazier than the original Hardy-was-fired narrative, which was already outlandish.

“There’s never been an Israeli-Palestinian issue. This show had plenty of issues. It never had that,” says one. In fact, Mirren and Brosnan had both been supportive behind the scenes as Hardy got dragged for alleged prima donna antics, and reached out to their co-star, sources say. Mirren then went on Instagram and posted a picture of Hardy with the caption “Love you now and always.”

Amid a social media news cycle that was now blaming Mirren for getting Hardy fired (even though he wasn’t fired), users were becoming increasingly hostile toward the Oscar winner, 80. Not surprisingly, Mirren turned off the comments on the post. (Mirren’s rep did not respond to a request for comment.)

On Friday, Paramount held a phone call with a number of invested parties to the lot to try to salvage a Season 3 with Hardy. We hear those talks are ongoing. If it can come together, it would be a wild ending for a drama with more faux drama than a “Real Housewives” catfight.

Paramount+, 101 Studios and Hardy’s reps declined comment.