Russell Crowe’s “Nottingham” To Be Really Weird

The story of Robin Hood is fairly well known. A merry band of rogues robs from the rich and gives to the poor, while the evil Sheriff of Nottingham tries to put a stop to this notorious do-goodnik. Yet the next big movie to tell this tale is planning to dump everything on its ear.

First we heard that Ridley Scott’s epic would be called Nottingham, and it would feature Russell Crowe in the role of the Sheriff, but would take a more sympathetic angle on the character as a sort of CSI-style investigation. Then we heard that somehow Crowe would be playing both the Sheriff and Robin Hood, which led us to thinking it’d be some strange psychological drama at work. Now, producer Brian Grazer tells us that it is Robin Hood who will be playing both himself and the Sheriff, as the real one is going to die in the opening act of the film.

Uh. Okay.

Scott himself called it “a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes.” Still, what the hell kind of movie are we going to get with this thing? On one hand, it’s good to have that mystery. On the other hand, buh?

We can hope it’ll turn out better than this.