Why Robin Hood Just Flopped So Hard

7. We've Seen Robin Hood With The Batman Begins Treatment Already

The big selling point of Robin Hood was the agenda to give it the Batman Begins treatment, stripping it back from what we THINK we know about it and telling a different side of the story, while simultaneously being all dark and edgy. That's why it was initially titled Robin Hood: Origins. The problem with that is that that's pretty much exactly the same agenda that Ridley Scott brought to the table with his own Robin Hood in 2010.

Trying the same thing twice and expecting different results is insanity, as a great man once said. But far worse is giving is something that seeks to do the same thing while insisting that it's something entirely different. Audiences see through that. They saw through it here.

On top of that, the 2010 movie is just much better in pretty much every respect and it still didn't make massive amounts of money. Chief among the things that make it stand out, but which also should have offered Lionsgate some hint that the property isn't worth the expense is how much work went into convincing audiences that this was a fully TRUE Robin Hood story. We were endlessly told that Russell Crowe had worked hard on getting Hood's correct accent and that the film was seeking historical authenticity.

That's traditionally how you'd captivate a Robin Hood audience and Scott's film still only took $321m against a cost of $200m. That SHOULD have been a major red flag, but instead, Lionsgate decided to try and push against the way that film was in the hope of reinventing the wheel at the same time as making it wheel-shaped with the function of a wheel.

Also, the only way to really get a reboot to work is to come from a position of abject failure. Batman Begins needed Batman & Robin to work and Robin Hood couldn't count on Robin Hood in 2010 being dire. The problem with that film was the audience, not the quality.