Right on target? … Russell Crowe as Robin Hood
Since the film was first announced in 2007, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood has been through more incarnations than the outlaw himself. If you believe the rush reports, it began life like a revisionist version titled Nottingham, featuring Crowe taken in the character of a good Sheriff battling an evil Hood, who was reportedly variegate to be played by Christian Bale.
Somewhere along the line, Crowe took through the whole extent of the role of Hood like well, and somewhere a little further along, he stopped being the Sheriff. Who then, predictably, stopped being good. The final pellicle is, being in favor … not in the same state revisionist succeeding all, and is titled simply Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Sienna Miller, who was supposed to be playing Maid Marian, has been replaced by Cate Blanchett, apparently because her youthful veneer made a post-Body of Lies Crowe look less sterling by comparison.
A red-haired Blanchett can be seen in this video, while a count of pics have also emerged of Crowe as Hood. By the looks of it, Scott is going for a gritty but epic Gladiator style retelling: Crowe has also spoken of the need to avoid the “Bon Jovi video” style of 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner, which sounds a good plan.
The screenplay is at once based on a script by Brian Helgeland, who wrote LA Confidential and Mystic River. “I was brought in by Ridley and my orders from him were, ‘I want to complete Robin Hood I want to make it real, how it might actually have been - not the myth’,” the writer told Empire recently. “The action will be more visceral than you’ve seen near the front of. I don’t think a honest person swings on a rope in this movie.”
Robin Hood is due for release in May 2010. What are your thoughts? Will all those rewrites and reworkings result in a confused mishmash of concepts? Or effect you trust that wily sly archer Scott to hit the target in the final cut?
