COMING SOON has the first actual trailer (an “international” sizzle-reel type thing) for Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” movie:

http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf

…yeah. This is another one of those teasers, like the early ones for “Sherlock Holmes.” that’re so concerned with reminding you of other recent movies the target-demo may have liked (in this case: 300, Gladiator, King Arthur, LOTR and so on) that there’s really no way to tell what the hell it is until the title comes up – before that, this might as well be the trailer for “Untitled Medieval Russel Crowe Actioner #5.” That it doesn’t look especially different “aesthetically” from “Prince of Thieves” over a decade ago is… not a good sign. Still, one must remember that this is Ridley Scott, who’s movies are usually better than their trailers (or, in some cases, the version that actually opened – if you’ve not seen the director’s cut of “Kingdom of Heaven,” DO SO: It’s one of the best films of his career.)

The history of this production has been ridiculous – assuming that ANY of it has been true: Depending on who you ask, this may or may not have started as a project called “Nottingham,” which would’ve been a revisionist version of the story with Robin as an illegitimately-lionized thug with a flair for self-promotion and the Sherriff as the put-upon good guy trying to bring him down even with “the people” against him. Sounds cool, right? Well, whether or not that was ever the case, it wasn’t for long: The next anyone heard of it, no one could confirm which of the two roles Crowe would be playing, and a NEW rumor surfaced that he’d actually be BOTH – either as some kind of “meta” casting or another “revisionist” take in which “Robin” is actually Nottingham’s secret-identity, which he creates in order to subvert The Crown himself. Also a nifty take, also apparently not-happening.

There’s also been some unsubstantiated talk that the people paying for the production more-or-less “demanded” that Scott/Crowe deliver a straight-ahead “unofficial-sequel-to-Gladiator” style take; resulting in this film which Universal is describing as another “real history behind the legend” go-round of the familair outline – i.e. Robin as disillusioned Crusades veteran who forms a woodland guerilla posse to fight unfair taxation.