Russell Crowe, no doubt pondering the next twist in the road for his “Robin Hood.” They should just give up and make a movie about making this movie.
Remember “Nottingham?” It was once supposed to be a revisionist take on the classic Robin Hood tale? It was supposed to star Russell Crowe and Sienna Miller, with Ridley Scott directing? It was supposed to start shooting LAST March? And Crowe was supposed to play both the Sheriff of Nottinghame and Robin Hood, or they were supposed to be the same person or something like that?
Well, now it’s likely to be called “Robin Hood.” And it’s going to be a standard telling of the Robin Hood story. Miller is out and Cate Blanchett is in. Crowe will not be playing a dual role; in fact, the Sheriff of Nottingham will be a comparatively small part of the story. And it still hasn’t started shooting. To say that the road for this production has been rocky would, indeed, be a vast understatement.
But according to Variety, ”Robin Hood” DOES have one thing going for it: an actual release date, May 14th, 2010. That means that the month now has a big popcorn movie slotted in every weekend–”Iron Man 2″ has May 2nd, “Shrek Goes Fourth” is out on the 21st, and “The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” takes up the Memorial Day weekend slot, May 28th.
So now there’s going to be a real battle for attention for those movies, and as each of them opens, they’ll have to fight against the excitement of the next one. How will “Robin Hood” fare in the middle of a group of movies that all come in with established audiences? It will be a tough sell. But you know what? If I was the betting type, I would lay down some money on “Robin Hood” not making that date. I bet it’s going to end up in something like October or November 2010–if that.
