This tipped me off to something weird happening:
Russell Crowe's Robin Hood to woo Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian: Will he finally be reunited with Oscars as well?
I mean, it's good news: "Because Cate Blanchett and her playwright husband Andrew Upton are co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company she has scaled back her film commitments to barely one a year. That makes the news that Blanchett is about to sign up to play Maid Marian opposite Russell Crowe's Robin Hood even more intriguing."
Great news, in fact, but --
The last time I looked, Russell Crowe was going to be playing the SHERIFF to Christian Bale's Robin. I admit, it's a few months since I looked, but ... this was it. Well, as of 02-28-09, try this one on for size:
The above is a screen-cap from the important part of the 2009 Robin Hood page at IMDB.
Christian Bale is nowhere in sight, and Russell will be playing (OMIGOD!!) both Robin and the Sheriff --
He's going to hunt himself down! He's going to promise to hang and/or behead himself! He's going to menace Maid Marian for being in love with him! He's going to betray himself to Prince John!
Pardon me, folks, but I know the story. I grew up with Robin Hood. He might have been Errol Flynn, or Michael Praed, or Sean Connery, or Jason Connery, or Richard Green, or Cary Elwes, or even (god help us) Kevin Costner. But I grew up with the legend, the mythos, the story, the whole bucket-of-bolts, and I can tell you for a fact, Robin Hood is not, nor was he ever, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
So --WTF?! And here's where I throw up my hands (not to mention my brekkie) and paste in some eye candy instead. So, what the hey, here goes -- Errol, Cary and Michael, in order:
Stay tooned for further developments...
