Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, and Errol Flynn are just a few of the actors who have brought Robin Hood to the big screen over the years. Next, a near-unrecognisable Hugh Jackman will take centre stage in A24's The Death of Robin Hood.
In the movie, grappling with his past after a life of crime and murder, Robin Hood finds himself gravely injured after a battle he thought would be his last. In the hands of a mysterious woman, he is offered a chance at salvation.
"What I love so much about [Michael Sarnoski's] vision of Robin Hood is that the script delivered power, and it examines how power can be used for good or bad," Jackman recently told Entertainment Weekly. "Robin Hood is a real man in our story. With all the scars, the pain, the regret, and yes, the love. Mike’s story has weight to it. For me, it’s beautiful and human."
The filmmaker behind A Quiet Place: Day One and Pig told the site, "You can be as familiar with earlier versions as you want. You'll be carried along to understand what this version is, because the performances are so specific and so different from what you've seen before."
"He was this murderous outlaw who did a lot of terrible things, and was kind of monstrous," Sarnoski continued. "But he's lived long enough to see this folklore get created about him. He's figuring out how he feels about that, about being portrayed as a hero when he knows what he really was."
Casting doubt on the notion that this version of Robin Hood will be the classic do-gooder who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, the writer and director added, "There are five early ballads of Robin Hood that were first written [as the story] was passed down as oral tradition. And they're really brutal. He is portrayed as a hero of the common man, but they're still somewhat horrifying, in the way that old folk tales are."
"There's an old quote about Robin that sort of says he's this murderous bandit who the common folk have decided to glorify, and I wanted to examine someone who was going through that in their lifetime, and trying to grapple with the role of storytelling and their actual identity."
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, The Death of Robin Hood stars Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Jupe. The movie arrives in theaters later this year.