Lionsgate has shared a new batch of images from their upcoming Robin Hood origin movie, and the Sheriff of Nottingham is looking more dapper than ever thanks to a sleek three-piece ensemble and the quality Blue Steel Ben Mendelsohn is serving. Originally titled Robin Hood: Origins, the film hails from Peaky Blinders director Otto Bathurst and offers a revisionist take on the Robin Hood origin story, inspired by the classic literary adventure.
Kingsman star Taron Egerton stars in the title role alongside Jamie Foxx as Little John, Jamie Dornan as Will Scarlett, Eve Hewson as Maid Marian, and Mendelsohn devastatingly chic Sheriff of Nottingham. We've seen most of the cast in the previously released images, but now we've got a good look at Mendelsohn in the gritty update.
Bathurst explained his take on the project last year:
“You don’t become a legend for 800 years if you’ve just stolen a few bags of money from rich people to give to the poor. In my mind, Robin Hood was this sort of seriously militarized anarchist revolutionary, a freedom thinker and a truth seeker. And the more I got into the story, it just became startling how utterly relevant it is to what’s going on in society now.”
Egerton echoed Bathurst’s comments, comparing the first act to something out of The Hurt Locker. "Otto told me he wanted to do something entirely revisionist, something that can’t be tied down to a medieval universe," Egerton explained.
Producer Basil Iwaynk previously told us a bit more about the film, explaining that it has elements of a PTSD drama.
"I feel that it captures the adventure and the fun and the spirit of Robin Hood, but because it’s the origin story—it’s a kid going off to war thinking he’s going on a great Crusade, and realizing it’s all bullshit and coming back with some PTSD and realizing he’s been lied to, and coming back to kind of a fractured society that doesn’t really accept him and realizing, ‘Okay the super rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.’ You could describe that now."
I must admit, I've grown skeptical of gritty origin stories after the glut of them that flooded genre filmmaking the last couple decades, and I'm not sure we need another Robin Hood movie, but it certainly sounds like they have an interesting spin on a story that's been told to death -- as long as they don't strip all the fun out of it. But man, Mendelsohn's coat is fun and I'm pretty sure Egerton is wearing an ascot so I'm willing to see where this goes.
Robin Hood hits theaters on September 21, 2018. Check out the new images below.
