UPDATE: Ridley Scott's 'Nottingham' Gets New Title and New Story Details
Keeping the title simple, but bringing a whole new story
BRIEF UPDATE: SlashFilm reports (via Production Weekly) the cast does include the following actors starring alongside Russell Crowe and Mark Strong: Oscar Isaac, Vanessa Redgrave, William Hurt, Saoirse Ronan and Cate Blanchett.
The only Ridley Scott film I think I actually can say I don't like is A Good Year, that movie just didn't work. While I am not a huge fan of Matchstick Men and not even among the masses that glorify Blade Runner (even though additional viewings of the film have warmed me to that project) I would never say I don't like them.
After watching Body of Lies again over the weekend it's got me in something of a Ridley mood and I have been aching to watch my brand new Blu-ray copy of the Kingdom of Heaven director's cut, which I haven't had a chance to watch since getting it on Christmas day, and perhaps even another viewing of Body of Lies but only after watching Black Hawk Down in a Ridley double header. So, when chatter about his upcoming Robin Hood feature comes about my ears perk up.
MTV has learned the title for the film has changed and production may begin very soon. "Oh yes, I think we are just going to call it Robin Hood," Scott revealed. "We start in almost 2 months." But he didn't stop there.
For so long Nottingham Robin Hood was said to center on the Sheriff of Nottingham (Russell Crowe) in a revisionist take on the Robin Hood tale, with Nottingham as a noble and brave lawman who labors for a corrupt king and engages in a love triangle with Maid Marion and Robin Hood. Talks of Crowe playing some sort of dual Sheriff/Robin Hood role in the film was even talked about, but it appears everything has changed.
Crowe will now be playing Robin Hood who "is in the army of Richard Coeur de Lion," Scott said. "He is a bowman in the army of Richard Coeur de Lion."
"[Crowe as both Robin and the Sheriff of Nottingham] was an idea so far back, way back when at the time I had this proposed to me, and I read it and thought, 'I don't really know what it does for it, but it's alright.' "It is better to simply have the evolution of a character called Robin Hood, who will come out of a point in the Crusades which is the end."
Scott even says now the Sheriff will be "less important; the Sheriff of Nottingham is always a kind of an amusing character in most of the movies, who represents the hierarchy in the story at that point. The hierarchy and the wealthy always ruled over the under class, and fundamentally that doesn't change, because Robin Hood is actually the person who finally – in terms of the overall classical idea of the film – will help the poor, probably taking from the rich."
The idea gets even bigger as Scott plans to make the country of France the overall villain saying, "It is from France. It is the French. The villain is much bigger in that sense; much more important, and much more dangerous.
"[In] 1066 Harold II went against William the Conqueror. Harold took an arrow in his eye, and William the Conqueror took over England, and so France owned everything right through. Even to the extent of changing the architecture of the churches from Anglo-Saxon to Roman, that's French; they changed the arches in the churches."
He finishes off by saying Crowe will indeed have lost the weight he gained for Body of Lies and he has been practicing with a bow and arrow for about four months and sends the director "tapes of him hitting targets at about 45 meters." Can't wait!
As of now Crowe and Mark Strong as the only known actors attached to the project. Strong leaked a while back that Cate Blanchett may be stepping into the Maid Marion spot vacated by Sienna Miller, but MTV did not get a confirmation or denial on that news.
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