Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” is botched you say? Hell, you don’t even know the back story.
An in-depth article by NY Magazine has dug into the drama around the production of Scott’s enervating merry men tale and if anything it confirms two things: 1) Hollywood really has its head up its ass sometimes especially when it comes to kowtowing to egos and 2) after the very expensive bombs of “The Wolf Man” and “Green Zone,” (both costing over $150 million and both likely not recouping), Universal is having a really, really tough year (let’s add the $20o million dollar cost of “Robin Hood” and a pretty soft opening and you’re looking at a year that will probably stay in the red even when the 4th quarter finally arrives, ouch).
Not only were millions of dollars thrown away in the making of this redo, it also nearly caused the rupture of one of Hollywood’s most successful actor/director partnerships in Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott. Let’s break this down in a timeline so you don’t have to read the entire thing.
12th Century – Robin Hood is born. Possibly.
January 2007 – The spec script written by “Sleeper Cell” creators Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reif, lands in Hollywood. Originally called, “Nottingham,” the story takes a new twist, focusing on the Sheriff of Nottingham, who is actually the nice guy in this version, with Robin Hood now the meanie, and they both fell in love with Marian. Switcharoo! Warner Bros. is interested and so is Disney. Suddenly, Russell Crowe’s agent at William Morris wants in too. (For the record, we’ve read “Nottingham,” and while the idea is interesting on paper, the execution is kind of awful; basically “CSI: Sherwood Forest,” full of terrible dialogue like “It seems word of your brilliant counter-mining stratagem and its utter defeat of the rebellious locals reached the Royal ears of King Richard — and His Majesty was quite impressed.” Those who are throwing their hands up at the desecration of an unmade gem aren’t exactly on the money.)
January 2007 (one week later) – Crowe reads the “Nottingham” script and attaches himself as the Sheriff. Done. This sparks the interest of studio executives who had originally passed over the project and now want to be involved. A bidding war erupts: New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. make offers, but Crowe wants to work with producer Brian Grazer, so Universal agrees to pay a whopping $1 million dollars to acquire the script, and another half million if it gets made.
March 2007 – Voris & Reif are so pumped to finally take that all-expenses-paid trip down to Australia to meet with Russell Crowe, go over their script and hang out at the actor’s farm over the summer. They already make plans to drop Mr. Sniffles off at the kennel.
April 2007 – Ridley Scott, (“Gladiator,” “American Gangster”) comes aboard to direct.
May 2007 – As soon as Scott’s arrival on the project is made public, Voris & Reif stop getting phone calls from the studio. Their reservations to Australia are put on hold and in typical Hollywood fashion, they find out that they have been fired by hearing that there is an open writing assignment at Universal for a project called Robin Hood. Somewhere, an agent’s assistant gets his wings.
Spring 2008 – Scott turns to screenwriter Brian Helgeland (“LA Confidential”, “8 Mile”) to morph Nottingham into a more traditional and boring Robin Hood tale. Two years from now Scott will tell the Sunday Times of London that the original premise was “fucking ridiculous” and that “you’d end up spending 80% of the publicity budget explaining why it was Nottingham and not just Robin Hood.” Conversely no one can explain to audiences why 80% of “Robin Hood” is dead boring.
Summer 2008 – Helgeland rewrites the script again, telling the tale of Robin impersonating the Sheriff of Nottingham after seeing him slain in battle. It’s a fresh idea and accordingly, Scott is not impressed. Universal then hires British screenwriter Paul Webb (who had been writing on Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln biopic). Scott is unhappy with this draft as well. He’s running out of time, a Screen Actors Guild strike is in the air and tension begins to mount between Crowe and Scott. Several people believe they have the right intentions; Hollywood is a funny place.
Early 2009 – Under pressure, Scott turns to Helgeland for yet another draft. In it, Robin would not impersonate the Sheriff, but instead takes over the identity of a slain knight from Nottingham. Finally, this is the story that Scott wants and the one that hit the screen this spring much to the chagrin of audiences that enjoy being mildly entertained.
April 2009 – Production Starts. However, the dialogue stinks as the script has been Frankenstein-ed over and over again. Universal hires another Brit playwright, the Oscar-winning Tom Stoppard (“Shakespeare in Love”), paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars to work as an on-set dialogue polisher, and pushing the film’s final screenwriting tab to a whopping $6.7 million. Not shillings. Dollars.
May 2010 – “Robin Hood” hits theaters, bores audiences to tears, fails to move the box-office and can’t even unseat “Iron Man 2” in its second week of release.
For all this time and money, Robin Hood failed to earn more than the 1991’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” or Scott/Crowe’s own “Gladiator”: “As BoxOfficeMojo.com recently pointed out, Robin Hood had a $36.1 million opening; when the other films are adjusted for ticket price inflation, ‘Prince of Thieves’ $25.6 million opening is equal to $48 million today, and Gladiator’s opening would equal over $51 million today.”
Two girls, one cup; one movie, four screenwriters. Does it really matter when it’s just going to end up a piece of shit anyway? These stories don’t always make us happy, and in many ways they’re depressing as all get out, but they are at the very least pretty entertaining. But seriously, don’t expect Universal to green light or announce any major tentpoles in the next year. They are in a seriously tight spot right now. Mind you, one disgruntled reader reminds us that “Robin Hood” did well internationally, so it’s possible the film can still make some money back, and yes, it has made $113 million so far. Just another $100 million to go, plus domestic and international P&A costs as well ($40 million as a very conservative estimate?).
