Russell Crowe pulls double duty for 'Nottingham'

Posted Monday, September 29, 2008 at 2:30 PM Central

by John Couture

When we heard that Ridley Scott was going to take a turn at the whole Robin Hood tale, we were both perplexed and excited at the same time. The guy that directed Blade Runner and Gladiator was finally going to give us a dark interpretation of the medieval vigilante known to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.

Of course, we did have a hard time trying to figure out how Scott was going to handle the tight tights. So, we were torn on the prospect, but the latest news from this project gives us renewed optimism.

MTV Movies Blog caught up with the director during an interview for his new movie Body of Lies and asked him about Nottingham and Russell Crowe, who had been tabbed to play the Sheriff of Nottingham.

"He’s playing both! [It's] a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes.”

So, it would appear from this that Crowe will be playing both the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood. I know that Ridley Scott has a man crush on Russell Crowe, but this might be a little too much.

Of course, the more we think about it, the more intriguing the possibility becomes. It becomes more of Jekyll vs. Hyde story and less of a good vs. evil story. I can envision the story being a moral tale now where the law-bound Sheriff finds himself surrounded by the corruption and greed of the ruling class and creates "Robin Hood" as a way for him to maintain his standing in society but to also fight the injustice that his form of justice from his day job breeds.

Throw in a perverted Maid Marion love triangle and you've got the basis of a decent movie.

To put it in modern comic terms that everyone will understand. It would be like taking Superman and making his alter ego Lex Luthor instead of Clark Kent. Again, intriguing.

What do you think? Do you have any classic stories that you think would benefit from this type of revisionist work?