While we are impatiently awaiting the diptych “The Three Musketeers”, French cinema will produce another cloak and dagger film, with “tremendous ambition” according to its producers. And this film will tackle a legendary hero, the one and only Robin Hood.
Gaumont takes on the prince of thieves
The legendary hero, and arguably the most famous medieval fictional character in the world, will make his return to the big screen, and in a French production please. Robin Hoodlord of Locksley, who robs the rich to give to the poor, will indeed have a new movie in his name. Gaumont and the company Albertine Productions are producing it.
The cinematographic adaptations of the medieval legend can be counted by tenswith a very first British feature film released in 1908. Today, we mainly know three movies who stood out: The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938 with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, the 1973 Disney film Robin Hoodand the film with Kevin Costner released in 1991: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. We can also add to this trio the version of Ridley Scott with Russell Crowe in the title role, released in 2010 and the last attempt to have convinced the world public.
Suffice to say that proposing a new feature film on Robin Hood, Marianne, Brother Tuck, Little Jean and the infamous Sheriff of Nottingham cannot be done economically. This is why Gaumont, which announced this project, underlines from the outset its great ambition.
A director of Lupine at the controls of “a great adventure film”
If, at this stage of development, we do not know anything about the casting, we already know who will direct and who will write this new Robin Hood. In the production, it is Ludovic Bernard, to whom we owe in particular The Ascension, 10 days without mom and recently two episodes of part 2 of Lupine. He will write the screenplay in collaboration with Julien Lambroschini, screenwriter among others of Dip by Melanie Laurent and The Big Bath by Gilles Lellouche. The film’s producer Matthieu Tarot spoke about the ambition of the project in these terms:
The ambition of “Robin Hood” is immense. Robin is a brigand with a big heart: he is Saxon, he falls in love with a Norman, he is loyal to the king and he redistributes wealth. After Erroll Flynn, Walt Disney’s fox and Kevin Costner, our wish is to bring a French touch to this modern-day hero. I am very proud to undertake this great adventure film with Gaumont, in an invaluable relationship of trust and loyalty.
Now it remains to be seen who will take the hero’s costume and quiver, and who will surround him in the casting!
