Russell Crowe: first pictures from Robin Hood movie

Russell Crowe has shed weight – and dispensed with the green tights – in these first pictures from the set of new movie Robin Hood.

• The Hollywood rumour-mill had it that Crowe was too fat to play the English folk hero in Ridley Scott’s $130 million epic after piling on 63lbs for his last two films, Body of Lies and State of Play.
• However, the first images from the set show that Crowe’s Robin bears more than a passing resemblance to his character in Gladiator, with the same buffed physique and close-cropped haircut. He also appears to be wearing jeans in place of the rather less macho Lincoln green tights worn by Errol Flynn.
• Producer Brian Grazer explained: “He doesn’t have the old Robin Hood tights. He’s got armour. He’s very medieval. He looks, if anything, more like he did in Gladiator than anything we’re used to seeing with Robin Hood.”
• Sienna Miller was originally cast as Maid Marian, but she left the film for undisclosed reasons and was replaced by Cate Blanchett. The script has undergone several rewrites, and an initial plan to cast the Sheriff of Nottingham as the hero and Robin as a morally ambiguous vigilante were dropped.
• Grazer said the storyline has resonance at a time when City bankers and Wall Street financiers are the new villains. “Oddly, it’s a metaphor for today. [Robin] is 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.”