Cate Blanchett is Maid Marian

Russell Crowe has found a worthy match. The film Nottingham, which is now evidently getting a title change to the more traditional Robin Hood, originally had Sienna Miller attached to play Maid Marian. There were rumors the stick thin Sienna Miller made the presently portly Russell Crowe look even wider and older. I'm not sure Cate Blanchett is any less thin, but she's certainly a better acting match for Russell Crowe, and a stronger personality. Variety has the skinny:

Cate Blanchett will play Maid Marian alongside Russell Crowe's Robin Hood in the Ridley Scott-directed drama for Universal Pictures.

The picture, which had been called "Nottingham" but is undergoing a title change, begins production in early April.

Crowe plays Robin of Loxley in an origin story of Robin Hood that hews close to historical facts of the period. Abandoned as a child, he finds community with the common people of Nottingham. Robin's abandonment and trust issues hamper his ability to fall in love. He meets his match in Marian, a strong, independent woman.

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.