Here Comes a New Robin Hood

First King Arthur, now...Robin Hood!

Some of ’em Hollywood powers that be are prepping a Robin Hood origin story, and they want Kingsman: The Secret Service breakout Taron Egerton to be their prince of thieves.

Indeed, the young Brit is first choice to topline Robin Hood: Origins (wow...clever).

Otto Bathurst (Netflix’s Peaky Blinders) will helm the character’s revisionist Leonardo DiCaprio-produced story, written by the same guy who rethought King Arthur’s story for Guy Ritchie and Charlie Hunnam.

Sherwood Forest will never be the same.

Photo: TaronEgertonOnline.tumblr.com.

The New Robin Hood

Once upon a time, Once Upon a Time had a Robin Hood – but then the show had to find another one.

As some of you might know, the hit TV show saw the arrival of the heroic outlaw on the fantastical scene last season. Back then, Welsh actor Tom Ellis did the honors.

Going into this fall’s third season, though, something has come up, and Ellis is unavailable to reprise the character, which, y’ know...shame, ’cause he really filled out the role quite nicely.

As they say in showbiz, though, the show must go on, and it will. And in keeping with a U.K. flavor, it will with Englishman Sean Maguire taking over the part.

“We have an arc planned for the character,” executive producer Adam Horowitz, not without noting everyone at the show is quite fond of Ellis. “[But] we had to move forward.”

Maguire as Robin Hood is expected to be in at least four episodes of Once Upon a Time next season, which will see the arrival of Ariel in Storybrooke! 

Photo: Actor Hunters.com.

Maid Up

Cate Blanchett will play Maid Marian to Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood in a soon-to-begin-production Ridley Scott-directed drama. Blanchett takes over the role from Sienna Miller, who was attached to the project at one time but exited last year.

The movie, f.k.a. Nottingham, will be renamed and will begin production in early April.

Crowe will play Robin of Loxley in an origin story about Robin Hood that hews close to historical facts of the period.

“[Russell and Cate] are both highly accomplished dramatic actors who are taken seriously playing rich characters in period pieces,” said producer Brian Grazer, “but each has the ability to show you fun.”

Photo: Time.com.

Boy with Arrow

Here comes the man in tights.

Get ready to see Russell Crowe take on the legendary Robin Hood in Ridley Scott’s blockbuster opening on May 4:



Robin Hood follows our hero from his early days in King Richard’s army to his return to Nottingham to his creation of a band of mercenaries who challenge the sheriff and eventually try to prevent civil war.

Cate Blanchett co-stars as Maid Marian.

Going Deep (Undercover)

Also this week we got the first trailer for the upcoming Point Break remake.

And it looks so whoa, yo.

Aussie up-and-comer Luke Bracey (The Best of Me) and Gerard Butler Édgar Ramírez lead the way, in the Keanu and Swayze roles of yore, Johnny Utah and Bodhi...the extreme athlete-newbie FBI agent chasing the extreme athlete Robin Hood-type rebel who has been using his skills to disrupt the international financial markets.

Of course.

Naturally, and because bigger is better, this little movie will not be limited to the SoCal surfing scene but will go ’round the world, setting its action against the backdrop of many a thrill-seeking opportunity.

Check out the trailer for a taste.

The new Point Break – featuring Teresa Palmer, Ray Winstone, Delroy Lindo, Clemence Shick, Tobias Santelmann (Kon-Tiki), and a cameoing original-flavor cast member James Le Gros, among others – will be in theaters on Christmas Day.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

The (Un)limited

Time is of the essence in Andrew Niccol’s new thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and that lucious creature known as Amanda Seyfried.

It is power, it is money, it is life. It. Is. Everything.

The futuristic movie tells the story of the lengths people go to in an era where people stop aging at 25. Not much of a reason is given for this marvel of bioengineering, really...something about crowd control, if memory serves.

The point is, once one turns 25, a neat Day-Glo green clocks lights up in people’s left arms, ticking down one year.

Timberlake, more leading-man-ish than ever, plays Will Salas, a 25-year-old going on 28 from the time-poor side of the tracks. (His 50-year-old mother is played by the beautiful Olivia Wilde.)

Will has always lived day to day ever since his time started running out, sprinting from one place to the other, making sure he has enough left on his clock to live to die another day.

One night at his local watering hole, he meets the morose Henry Hamilton, a handsome fellow played by Matt Bomer, who tells Will that even if he could live forever he may not want to. Time tends to catch up with the mind after a century.

Yeah, that’s about how much time Henry has on his clock (he is, in the way of In Time, rich), and after Will helps him get away from Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) and his gang of time thieves (much to the chagrin of the wealthy suicidal who had spent his evening flaunting his left arm around), Henry bequeaths his fortune to his golden-hearted Good Samaritan.

Henry carries out his plan to end it all on his own (he was pretty much asking Fortis to clean out his clock), timing out from the top of a bridge, leaving Will to appear as the prime suspect in his death.

A second passing (bye-bye, mama Salas) sends Will into an indignant quest to even out the scales. He heads to New Greenwhich, which is where people with a lot of time on their hands live (you know because everyone walks), and sets out to steal the time he feels they are taking away from everybody else.

He finds an unlikely ally in Sylvia Weis (Seyfried), the sheltered and unexcited daughter of one of the wealthiest men on Earth, banker Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), and, together, they go on an us-against-them crusade to even out the playing field.

Will and Sylvia put on their Robin Hood pants and go all Bonnie and Clyde (at first, she is his all-too-willing hostage, but after she saves him from a timekeeper...a cop, in essence, played by Cillian Murphy...she then becomes his more-than-a-sidekick accomplice).

In Time is an effective piece of entertainment, I think, that works because it subtly asks of its audience provocative questions without getting in the way of enjoyment.

I think that’s important, and I can’t imagine you will find any fault in that. Other than the hotties that star in it don’t spend a little more time showing us more than their arms as a way to tantalize not only one another but us, who, obviously, woulda preferred it if their secret time stamps had been placed somewhere sexier.

My Rating ***

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

The Devil Is Coming

Evidently, Fox is mounting a show titled Lucifer – based on the DC Comics character (mmm...emboldened, perhaps, by the runaway success of NBC’s Constantine?) – for fall, and the powers that be have thought Welsh for their casting.

Enter Tom Ellis, a.k.a. the original Robin Hood on TV’s Once Upon a Time.

The actor will take on the role of the Lord of Hell who, bored with his throne, abdicates and relocates to L.A. (a different kind o’ hell, by all means) and starts helping the LAPD punish bad elements.

Well there ya go.

Photo: Pinterest.com.

Life After Keamy

Kevin Durand, a.k.a. Lost’s mercenary mofo Keamy, is looking ahead at life after the show.

The actor has lined up back-to-back movies, beginning with I Am Number Four, the D.J. Caruso-directed, Sharlto Copley-starring movie about aliens posing as high schoolers on Earth. Durand would play the alien commander hunting them.

Then, the beefstastic guy is set to join Hugh Jackman in Shawn Levy’s Real Steel, a futuristic tale in which human-like robots fight it out in the boxing ring.

Mmm…if I didn’t know any better – which I don’t – I’d say Durand’s a bit hung up on appearances.

Up next, though, is Robin Hood, which arrives in theaters next week.

Photo: CaramelitosBaronil.blogspot.com.