Ridley Scott’s Strange ‘Nottingham’ Casting Claim
In the few short months that I’ve been keeping tabs on daily movie news, Twilight pimping MTV has quickly positioned itself as the least reliable establishment source for news and the most likely to pass along unverified nonsense in the interest of page views. They didn’t originate the (probable) lie that Clooney would be The Lone Ranger to Johnny Depp’s Tonto (that honor belongs to AICN), but they were all too happy to pass it along. It turns out you can say anything you want in a blog if you simply put a question mark in the headline.
“Ann Coulter to have penis surgery?”
See? (seriously though…pass it on.)
So it is with great skepticism we report MTV’s latest bit of “breaking news.” According to Josh Horowitz, Ridley Scott has said Russell Crowe will play both the sheriff and Robin Hood in the delayed Nottingham. Says Horowitz:
“The news comes straight from the helmer himself, with Scott revealing ‘He’s playing both!’ exclusively to MTV News during an interview for his new film Body of Lies, which co-stars Crowe. While Scott held additional details close to his chest - saying they would take too long to describe - he did exclaim that Crowe’s dual roles would be ‘a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes.’ “
With no context and no follow-up, it’s difficult to know what to make of this, but something is fishy and I’m not ready to take Scott literally. What if Crowe isn’t really playing two characters, but is instead the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude? Does it even make any sense to have Robin Hood and the sheriff be the same person? Probably not, but it’s better than twins separated at birth like Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Chad and Alex or something…right?
I don’t know. Maybe Ridley was drunk.
[UPDATE 9/29/08: Devin Faraci points out that CHUD broke the Russell Crowe casting news back in July and MTV is simply confirming it. He also adds fuel to my speculation that the Sheriff and Robin Hood are now the same character.]
Filed under: News, Pre-Production
Tags: Nottingham, Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe
Related Posts: - Body of Lies 2.0
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- Ridley Scott’s ‘Body of Lies’ Trailer
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It’ll be the ultimate Crowe-Scott collaboration–no need for some co-star, Russell will play ‘em both!
That way they can be buddy-buddy to their hearts’ content.
George Clooney as the Lone Ranger? Ahahaha. Funniest thing I’ve heard all day.
That one could turn out to be true Alison, but right now it’s just a rumor from unnamed sources. I’ll believe it when it’s in Variety.
ONE of the reasons I love RUSSELL CROWE is that he’s an astonishingly brilliant character actor.
Could he play two leads? EASILY…and similar things have been done before.
But what the hell would be the point? Russell’s richer than hell, has an Oscar, a growing family and a fabulous body of work.
THE MAN HAS NOTHING LEFT TO PROVE.
Somehow I don’t he think he aspires to be…EDDIE MURPHY.
I think SIR RIDLEY’S the living bloody end. But he doesn’t do lamebrained. Not as far as I know.
I think somebody’s pulling someone else’s leg.
Or something…
He’s yanking MTV’s chain (a la Michael Caine) OR Robin Hood and the Sheriff are simply the same character…like the Sheriff is really a good guy but has to pretend to be bad or something.
I was kind of interested in the idea that they were going to tell the story from the point of view of the villain though….if the Sheriff isn’t bad, it kinda takes the fun out of that. Oh well.
I’m not a huge Ridley fan and Crowe is hit and miss with me, but I’m still interested in this one.
It seems like MTV’s big trick is to ask people if X film has a sequel coming and acting like that’s news.
Yes! Some of the Internet movie sites are notorious for that garbage, but it’s especially galling with MTV because of their affiliation with actual…you know…legitimate media.
“OR Robin Hood and the Sheriff are simply the same character…like the Sheriff is really a good guy but has to pretend to be bad or something.”
Craig, it sounds like Donald Kaufman from Adaptation worked on this screenplay.
I would pay cash money to see a Donald Kaufman Robin Hood.
Russell Crowe’s accent already resembles something that would fit in another version Robin Hood… though he’ll probably have to drop some of that girth he developed for Body of Lies