Hugh Jackman is not the Robin Hood you’ve seen in past cinematic iterations in writer/director Michael Sarnoski‘s The Death of Robin Hood. The helmer of A Quiet Place: Day One and Pig returns with a bold, brutal look at Robin Hood’s life, here a tortured soul haunted by a past filled with crime and murder. In the first trailer, Sarnoski’s approach to the material is clear, as is the film’s logline: “He was no hero.”
The trailer opens with a bearded, aging Robin Hood speaking to a mysterious woman (Jodie Comer) about the lies people tell about him. “People speak of Robin Hood, telling stories. They’re all lies.” These solemn words are spoken over images of Robin Hood dragging one of his victims before dispatching him in a shallow grave.
Jodie Comer in “The Death of Robin Hood.” Courtesy A24
“Lies that I told, long ago,” Robin Hood adds, confirming that all the legends of his derring-do— stealing from the rich to give to the poor—all the stories that have made Robin Hood a beloved outlaw figure in the minds of millions (including, of course, readers and moviegoers for generations) are myths he created to burnish his image. The real Robin Hood, Sarnoski tells us, was a brute.
“This world cares only about blood,” the outlaw tells us as the trailer draws to a close over images of his many transgressions. “And blood is all I will give in return.”
The trailer does swift work setting up Sarnoski’s vision and Jackman’s total commitment to portraying an outlaw who has robbed people of their possessions and their lives, and one who does not fit the legend we’ve been told many times over. In The Death of Robin Hood, our haunted hero is gravely injured after a battle and finds himself in the hands of Comer’s mysterious woman, offered one last chance at salvation.
Joining Jackman and Comer in the cast are Bill Skarsgård, Noah Jupe, Murray Bartlett, Elijah Ungvary, Tabitha Smyth, and Faith Delaney.
Check out the trailer here. The Death of Robin Hood arrives in theaters on June 19.
Featured image: Hugh Jackman is Robin Hood in “The Death of Robin Hood.” Courtesy A24.