See Hugh Jackman as Old Man Robin Hood in New A24 Trailer
Our first look at The Death of Robin Hood promises an even darker take on a hero at sunset than Logan…
“Give me my bent bow in hand, and my broad arrows I’ll let flee; and where the arrow is taken up, there shall my grave digged be.” So sayeth Robin Hood with his near dying breath—or at least that is what is passed down to us by one version of his end in a folktale recorded in 1786. It appears that Hugh Jackman, and perhaps more intriguingly writer-director Michael Sarnoski and indie trendsetting studio A24, are about to give us another. And as befits those tastes, it looks like it’s going to get dark.
In our first teaser trailer, an aged and extremely bearded Jackman provides a hero even more wisened and wearied than the riff on Old Man Logan he led in what is still the finest X-Men movie ever made, Logan. And like that James Mangold picture, The Death of Robin Hood appears keen on deconstructing the mythology that goes into tales of heroes and villains, outlaws and freedom fighters. “People speak of Robin Hood, tell his stories,” Jackman forewarns at the top of the trailer. “They’re all lies.”
In some ways this is obviously familiar territory for Jackman, who has lately sought to subvert and contradict many of the heroic roles that began his Hollywood career. What once was defined by a more idolized portrait of Wolverine in movies like the original X-Men trilogy, or for that matter the sparkling theatrics of Van Helsing and Duke Leopold of Albany, has since given way to the aforementioned Logan and the tragically flawed father of Prisoners.
So this positively medieval interpretation of Robin Hood appears very much in the same vein. Here we see Jackman caked in mud and misery as he describes himself as a monstrous brigand more comfortable swinging an ax in blood-soaked battle than a bow at a frolicking tourney.
Admittedly this will be yet another Robin Hood movie that seeks to counteract the popular image of the character passed down by most early modern folktales or, for that matter, Errol Flynn and an animated fox. In fact, the last time we had a swashbuckling Robin Hood on the big screen was probably Kevin Costner more than 30 years ago. And yet, lest you think this is another sacrilegious destruction of a myth, the fact that The Death of Robin Hood also includes Jodie Comer as a kindly nun eager to nurse the old man back to health should intrigue anyone familiar with the myths.
Aye, well before Costner, or Flynn and the fox, and even before Sir Walter Scott turned Robin of the Hood into a displaced Anglo-Saxon lord hailing from Locksley in 1819, the original tales spoke of Robin as a brigand and trickster who offered a form of justice, or at least satisfaction, recognizable to medieval bards and tale-spinners. And one of the most poignantly memorable Robin Hood stories involves an old archer and a prioress he meets along the way.
Furthermore, the fact the film is the next feature from Sarnoski after he wrote and directed one of the best movies in Nicolas Cage’s career via Pig is incredibly exciting. And as still proud boosters of David Lowery’s own revisionist riff on medieval English legends in the underrated The Green Knight, seeing what Sarnoski gets up to with the same amount of creative freedom intrigues.
The Death of Robin Hood also stars Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Jupe and releases later this year.