British television and commercials director Otto Bathurst makes his feature debut with a new version of the Robin Hood legend. The November 21 release, titled Robin Hood, stars British actor Taron Egerton (from the Kingsman franchise) as the charismatic outlaw who takes on the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham along with his group Merry Men.
Jamie Foxx plays Robin Hood’s brother in arms Little John, Ben Mendelsohn has been cast as the sheriff, Eve Hewson is Maid Marian, Jamie Dornan plays Marian’s husband Little Scarlet, and Tim Minchin is Friar Tuck.
Bathurst has previously directed episodes of Black Mirror and the popular period crime show Peaky Blinders. Characterised by stylised archery sequences, laconic British humour and a kinetic pace, the trailer indicates that the latest adaptation of thirteenth-century British folklore will be anything but staid. The movie has been shot in Croatia, Hungary and France.
Among the numerous film and television adaptations of the outlaw’s adventures are a 1922 version starring Douglas Fairbanks, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), featuring Errol Flynn, Robin and Marian (1976), the Kevin Costner starrer Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and Ridley Scott’s 2010 movie.
In 1993, Mel Brooks directed the spoof Robin Hood: Men in Tights, starring Cary Elwes as the bandit who famously robs the rich to pay the poor.
