We first heard about the new adaptation of A Christmas Carol starring Tom Hardy way back in 2017, and it seems plans have become even more ambitious.

Taboo creator Steven Knight, who worked with Tom on Peaky Blinders as well as the spooky period drama, spoke to Collider recently about their plans to adapt some of Charles Dickens' most famous works.

"What I'm planning to do is adapt five Dickens books — A Christmas Carol plus four novels — and do it over a period of six or seven years and have a repertory of actors," he said. "I think we'll get the best actors in the world, hopefully, to take part because the Dickens characters are so great."

Whoa. So this is starting to sound like The Hollow Crown, the BBC's recent star-studded adaptation of Shakespeare's history plays. According to Steve, the Dickens novels in question include David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, and will be made in "a modern way" like Taboo.

Steve also confirmed Tom would appear in all of the four other adaptations, which, like Taboo, would span eight hour-long episodes each.

The first though will be A Christmas Carol, the 1843 novella memorably tackled by on-screen repertories as varied as Alastair Sim and Albert Finney to Mr. Magoo and The Muppets.

"It’s gonna be three one-hours," Steve told Collider about his and Tom's new version. "It's largely done in terms of the script. We're planning to shoot this year and hopefully get it on the screen for Christmas."

It sounds as if a U.S. outing is covered too, with Steve promising "an American element" that's yet to be announced — though he was Scrooge-like on details when it came to which roles Tom would play.

"I'm not going to reveal [that]," he said, "but he's going to be pivotal in the whole thing."

"Pivotal" doesn't sound like it's main character Ebeneezer Scrooge, meaning Tom could play Scrooge's underpaid clerk Bob Cratchitt, or, even better, rattle chains as Scrooge's dead business partner Jacob Marley.

Whichever characters he plays, we think this sounds like unmissable TV.

Do you like the sound of a Taboo-style retelling of your Dickens favorites?