Maximus Hood - back to fighting trim

USA Today has a first look picture of Russell Crowe in Robin Hood, with a haircut and physique very much like his look in Gladiator. He's lost the weight he gained for Body of Lies, and I guess that long hairdo he sported in State of Play which I thought was for Robin Hood was jettisoned.

Producer Brian Grazer compared Crowe to his Gladiator look and says about the film:

Grazer says Robin Hood's story was ripe for revisiting.

"Oddly, it's a metaphor for today," Grazer says. "He's trying to create equality in a world where there are a lot of injustices. He's a crusader for the people, trying to reclaim some of the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy. That's a universal theme."

Even Helen Mirren in State of Play seems to be thinking "Get a grip and pull yourself together. You look like a slob!"

Below Russell last week in NYC, and chubby hubby Crowe last October:

New Sheriff in Town

How did I not hear about this project before? Yesterday, it was announced that Sienna Miller (Alfie) had signed on to play Maid Marion in Ridley Scott's upcoming Nottingham. Russell Crowe had already been slated to play not Robin Hood, but in a rethinking of the legend, the good Sheriff of Nottingham. The film will have a love triangle not between Robin Hood, Maid Marion and King John, but with the Sheriff of Nottingham. I've been digging for a little more on the story and found this quote from producer Brian Grazer:

‘Nottingham’ is the ‘Gladiator’ version of Robin Hood,” super-producer Brian Grazer told MTV News about the upcoming twisted tale from the “American Gangster” tag team. “I think it will have the same propulsion that ‘Gladiator’ had - the same adrenaline hits.”

Told from the Sheriff’s point of view, the new movie centers around a familiar - yet very different - set of characters, director Ridley Scott said, revealing that his story begins when a legend first walks into history.

“Richard the Lionheart is on his return from the Crusades [when] he took an arrow in his neck and died,” Scott said of the flick’s set-up. “His brother, John, [becomes king.]”

John, known in his own life as John Lackland (because as the youngest son he didn’t get any inheritance) “was actually pretty smart,” Scott insisted. “[But] he got a bad rap because he introduced taxation. So he’s the bad guy in this.”

Meanwhile, “You’ve got the returning Nottingham who is the right hand man of Richard and witnesses Richard taking the arrow,” Scott revealed. “And so he comes back to England to carry forward Richard’s dream about England.”

The Sheriff, then, strives to do right while caught in the middle of two wrongs – on one side a corrupt and unpopular King who orders him to arrest outlaws, on the other the outlaw himself who threatens to rouse the public in popular anarchy.

Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have been powerful partners before in films like Gladiator and American Gangster. Not so much in The Good Year, but it looked like they had fun in France drinking wine! Fingers crossed that Nottingham is one of their better film partnerships.