MOVIE NEWS – A24 has released a new promotional video for The Death of Robin Hood, with Hugh Jackman reframing the outlaw not as a romantic folk hero, but as an aging, broken criminal carrying the weight of his sins. Michael Sarnoski’s film reaches back toward the darker roots of the Robin Hood legend and promises an R-rated reimagining far removed from the usual light swashbuckling adventure.

Robin Hood is one of the most recognizable figures in English folklore, with stories that can be traced back to medieval ballads from the 14th and 15th centuries. Since then, the outlaw archer has returned again and again in film, television, literature and theater, usually as a romanticized hero: the man who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. The Death of Robin Hood, however, is not trying to polish that tradition one more time. A24’s film is being positioned as a harder, adult-oriented reimagining, one that turns the legendary figure into a man burdened by blood, violence and guilt.

Hugh Jackman plays an older, battered Robin Hood in this version, with an unkempt gray beard and wild hair that immediately separate him from the charming forest hero familiar from many earlier adaptations. In the MovieWeb-quoted first-look material, Jackman describes the role in exactly those terms: “Robin Hood is a real man in our story. With all the scars, the pain, the regret, and yes, the love.” That is the key to Michael Sarnoski’s approach: this is not a spotless folk champion, but a man whose myth and true past are separated by a bloody gap.

The film is directed by Sarnoski, who, after Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One, is now focusing on the later, reckoning-filled years of Robin Hood’s life. In this story, the outlaw has to confront not only a brutal world, but also the consequences of his own violent past. Judging by the trailers and the new promotional featurette, the film approaches the myth as a murderous medieval thriller, and it clearly has no interest in hiding the mud, blood and lies beneath the legend.

Hugh Jackman’s History Lesson Breaks the Sanitized Legend

A24’s new promotional video does not play like a simple behind-the-scenes featurette, but rather like a dark, compact history lesson. Jackman’s narration begins by pointing out that Robin Hood was not always portrayed as a noble-hearted champion in the earliest stories. According to the monologue, those early tellings presented him as a famous cutthroat, a blood-soaked outlaw rather than a clean moral hero. The video specifically highlights the 15th-century ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode, in which Robin hunts the Sheriff of Nottingham, brings him down with an arrow and then takes his head with a sword. That is a long way from the family-friendly Robin Hood image that pop culture has conveniently rounded off over the centuries.

The video uses exactly that contrast: the romantic ideal of Robin Hood has long captured the public imagination, but life in the medieval world was in reality a ruthless fight for survival. Accordingly, The Death of Robin Hood presents Robin as an aging recluse whose life has been shaped by fighting, stealing and surviving. We are not seeing a newly triumphant folk hero, but a hunted pariah and outlaw approaching death, forced to make some kind of peace with the sins of his past. The film is therefore not trying to preserve the shining surface of the Robin Hood legend, but to ask what remains of the myth once the heroic varnish has been scraped away.

The new interpretation also reworks two major traditional figures. In stories of Robin Hood’s death, the hero is betrayed by a wicked prioress during a bloodletting, but the film’s premise suggests that the roles may be reversed here: Robin could be the sadistic threat, while the prioress becomes his noble caregiver. The other key figure is Little John, usually remembered as a gentle and loyal sidekick, who here appears as a man hiding behind a new identity and a dark past. The question is not whether he belongs to the legend, but what a lifetime of brigandry, violence and hiding does to a person.

Jodie Comer and Bill Skarsgård Bring New Weight to the Legend

A24’s video also brings several important cast members into focus. Jodie Comer plays Sister Brigid, Robin’s noble caretaker, who, based on the story’s setup, may be more than a supporting presence and could become one of the keys to his final chance at salvation. Bill Skarsgård plays the film’s reimagined Little John, not as the familiar cheerful companion, but as someone whose past may be almost as burdened as Robin’s. The cast also includes Murray Bartlett and Noah Jupe, who are expected to play important roles in the final days of the broken outlaw.

The film’s official premise follows Robin Hood after a life of crime and murder, as he is gravely injured in a battle he thought would be his last. In the hands of a mysterious woman, he is offered a chance at salvation. That setup clearly pushes the film away from a classic origin story or a familiar Sherwood Forest adventure, and toward a late-life reckoning. In this version, the Robin Hood stories are only stories: beautifully told lies beneath which a violent past is still bleeding in the mud.

The Death of Robin Hood opens in US theaters on June 19, 2026, the same day as Toy Story 5, which could make for one of the stranger theatrical contrasts of the summer. In France, the film’s official title is On l’appelait Robin des Bois, with a theatrical release planned for July 1, 2026. If Sarnoski’s film delivers on the promise of its footage so far, this Robin Hood will not be the one merrily handing out justice in the woods, but the one whose legend finally shows the blood underneath.

Source: MovieWeb, MovieWeb, A24, AlloCiné