Like cicadas gestating or a wild animal migration, Hollywood dusts off the Robin Hood IP every seven years for another swing at the Sherwood bandit story. Perhaps with wealth inequality at an all-time high, the tale of the legendary crusader for the poor will strike a chord with today’s audience. Although in the new film,The Death of Robin Hood,starringHugh Jackmanand directed byMichael Sarnoski,Hood’s men might be a little less merry as this promises to be a darker take on the fiscal redistributor.
According toDeadline, the film just added to its rosterBill SkarsgårdofNosferatu, Murray Bartlett (who had a star-making turn inThe White Lotus) and Noah Jupe, who was also in Sarnoski’sA Quiet Place. Sarnoski spoke withColliderwhile promotingQuiet Place: Day Onelast year and gave some insight into his process in bringing a new dimension to the familiar character:
“I wrote that script right before coming onto A Quiet Place. I kind of made a deal with myself where, if I was gonna do a big studio movie, I wanted to make sure I had my smaller passion project in the wings that I could be thinking about. So, I wrote it right before writing this and have just kind of been playing with it in the background…It has a sort of different version of the epic Robin that we’re used to, while also a very intimate story that’s going throughout, as well. So, it’ll have a little bit for everyone in that sense.”
Going Back To The Robin Hood Well
Robin Hood lives in something even more enchanting than Sherwood Forest - the public domain. And that’s why studios can’t help but mine the swashbuckling IP for everything it’s got. From the early days of Errol Flynn, to Kevin Costner’s lethargic and accentless take in the 90s, to Taron Egerton’slaughable Dark Knight ripoff in 2018, some version of Robin Hood is usually right around the corner. Modern retellings always seem to miss the bullseye in one way or another. But what Robin Hood represents to class struggle and inequality is more exigent than ever, and Sarnoski’s darker take about an aging, wounded Robin Hood might serve as a reflection of our modern crumbling institutions and social safety nets.
The Hollywood machine has been making the most of IPs in the public domain recently, with a constant stream of cheap, dirty slasher movies being based around some much loved children’s stories, such as those about Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan. While the new take on Robin Hood is expected to be darker and more brutal than many of the previous itterations of the legend of the British outlaw, it probably won’t be going quite as far as some of those movies. Thank Friar Tuck for that. Production on the film begins in Ireland this week and it will be distributed in the US by A24. No release date has been set for the film as of this writing.
The Death of Robin Hood Director Reveals Intriguing Details About New Hugh Jackman Movie
A Quiet Place: Day One director Michael Sarnoski offers some interesting insight into his dark Robin Hood movie as he prepares for pre-production.
