It seems as if Hollywood learned nothing from last year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice” or really any other reboot that furrowed its brow in seriousness: going gritty isn’t always what audiences want. That being said, for all the iterations of Robin Hood we’ve had on the big screen from the heroic (“Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves“) to the satirical (“Robin Hood: Men In Tights“) to the animated (“Robin Hood“), I suppose we’ve never really seen him suffer with psychological wear and tear (though Ridley Scott took things in a more serious direction with his 2010 movie). However, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
But for the upcoming “Robin Hood: Origins,” led by “Kingsman: The Secret Service” star Taron Egerton, it looks like the man who steals from the rich and gives to the poor will also be dealing with real personal issues. Which I suppose is exciting if that’s what you want from a Robin Hood movie.
“….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,” producer Basil Iwaynk told Collider. “What Joby Harold, our writer, was able to do is make it feel very allegorical and very contemporary, and feel youthful but not youthful in a YA way, youthful in a kind of, the anger, the energy, what people when they were 25 feel, without it being pandering like ‘Look, we’re the young version of the movie!’”
Indeed, Iwaynk brings up another franchise with his name on it — “John Wick” — to emphasize that ‘Origins’ won’t just be a lot of brooding around.
“…the stunt work that we’re doing — a lot of it was inspired by the ‘John Wick’ stunt work. The stuff we’re doing with the bow and arrow, it’s the same thing that Keanu [Reeves] does with the gun. The costumes, it just feels different than any other Robin Hood we had,” he added.
So, bow-and-arrow-fu? Okay, sure…
“Robin Hood: Origins” opens on March 23, 2018.