Margot Robbie just graduated from supervillain to superhero, and no, we don’t mean that Harley Quinn is going legit. The Suicide Squad star is now attached to Marian, an upcoming film that recasts Maid Marian as the vigilante hero Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor and protected England from the villainous Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham… who both probably thought of Robin Hood as a supervillain, come to think of it. (Maybe this really is a lateral move.)
Deadline reports that Margot Robbie will play Marian, Robin Hood’s lover, who watches the legendary hero die and then takes up his legendary mantle to save her country from a conspiracy, and eventually leads the people of England into war.
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Sony Pictures acquired the script for Marian from screenwriter Pete Barry, and it’s an interesting choice for the studio, which two years ago paid a lot of money for the rights to a Robin Hood shared universe, a la DC Extended Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve heard next to nothing about that project in the years that followed, and the studio’s acquisition of Marian seems to imply that they’ve either moved on completely or that they plan to incorporate this new version of Robin Hood into that shared universe concept.
Warner Bros.
Margot Robbie is rapidly becoming one of the most recognizable movie stars of her generation, thanks to roles in hit films like The Wolf of Wall Street and Suicide Squad. She is slated to reprise her role as Harley Quinn in the upcoming Warner Bros. superhero team-up Gotham City Sirens, which will team the character up with other female super-characters from the DCEU, and she will also play an almost-Olympic in I, Tonya Harding, about the woman whose boyfriend attacked a rival figure skater and set off a scandal.
Robin Hood is, of course, one of the most iconic stories ever told and has been subjected to multiple revisions, rewrites and reinterpretations throughout the centuries. The concept for Marian is a fun one and could potentially make for a rousing adventure. Let’s just hope that’s how it turns out.
Top Photo: Warner Bros.
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
