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Monday
13Apr2009

William Hurt Rounded Up for 'Robin Hood'

DateMonday, April 13, 2009 at 1:20AM
The cast for Ridley Scott's Robin Hood - the film formerly known as Nottingham - has added Oscar winner William Hurt, who will play William Marshall, the Earl of Pembroke. The Hollywood Reporter adds that Marshall was one of the best jousters of his day, which makes me smirk, holding in a quick but powerful laugh.

Hurt joins an altogether enviable group of actors, including Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Vanessa Redgrave, and Mark Strong, who had one of the better years of any actor in 2008. Scott's the outsider of the group, at least when it comes to Academy Awards. Counting Scott's three nominations as a director, those other five names have 21 Oscar nominations and four wins between them.

Perhaps to your surprise, Hurt has four of those nods, going back-to-back-to-back between 1986 and 1988, a feat equaled only by Crowe in the years since (2000 - 2002).

Robin Hood has undergone a host of changes since it was first announced, but the project seems to be in better shape now than it ever was before, with the possible exception being the change of the narrative focus from the Sheriff of Nottingham back to Robin Hood.

I've given that some thought over the past few weeks, and while I'm a big believer in telling the familiar story in an unfamiliar way, there's also a great deal of logic to not overcomplicating the story just for the sake of making it different.

Either way, it's tough to knock the talent in Ridley's stable for this one.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment1 Comment |

Reader Comments (1)

I have to admit that I have been shaking my head at this project for some time now.

But the new cast is nothing short of awesome and it looks like Ridley has found a new house actor in Mark Strong, who stole the scene in Body of Lies.

I hope that Brian Helgeland's rewrite of the script makes sense, too, and this might be a good one after all.

Monday, April 13, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterLengthy Johnson

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