Robin Hood has been remade so many times that the myth can feel preloaded. The green tights. The charming outlaw. The moral certainty. Yet A24’s The Death of Robin Hood is aiming somewhere darker and more human: the end, not the beginning.
Directed and written by Michael Sarnoski, the film stars Hugh Jackman as a battle-worn Robin Hood, with Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Jupe also in the cast. The official setup is blunt about what most adaptations soften. This Robin has lived “a life of crime and murder,” and when he is gravely injured after a battle he believed would be his last, a mysterious woman offers him a chance at salvation.
A Robin Hood story told in reverse
Most Robin Hood movies treat consequence as an afterthought. The Death of Robin Hood foregrounds it. In A24’s official synopsis, Robin is not simply a folk hero on a righteous mission. He is a man reckoning with what he has done and what people now claim he represents.
Entertainment Weekly’s first look leans into that tension. Sarnoski describes a Robin who has lived long enough to see folklore form around him, and to feel conflicted about being portrayed as a hero when he knows the uglier truth of who he was. In other words, the story is not asking whether Robin wins. Instead, it asks what the legend costs the person underneath it.
“Robin Hood is a real man in our story. With all the scars, the pain, the regret, and yes, the love.”
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, and a cast built for intensity
Jackman’s casting signals a specific kind of Robin Hood: older, physically marked, emotionally heavy. That matters because it aligns with the film’s core idea. This is a final chapter story, and a final chapter needs gravity.
Jodie Comer’s role is being kept deliberately mysterious in public reporting, and EW notes she is not Maid Marian. That choice alone suggests the film is not trying to remix familiar beats just to check boxes. It is reassembling the legend around different emotional stakes.
Bill Skarsgård appears as “a version of Little John,” per EW’s reporting, with Sarnoski framing their dynamic as one shaped by a shared past and a present-day collision of meaning. That sets up the kind of conflict A24 tends to favor: intimate, character-based tension that can still feel epic when placed in harsh, historical conditions.
Brutality, not choreography
Sarnoski has been clear in interviews that the fighting is not meant to feel like elegant fencing. He has described something closer to mud and impact, where survival is messy and violence is not romantic. That tonal intent lines up with the film’s R rating and the moral angle of the premise.
EW also reports that the production shot in Northern Ireland and that Sarnoski described the environment as cold and punishing, which fits the look suggested by the first images. If the movie succeeds, the landscape will not be a postcard. It will be part of the pressure.
What A24’s approach suggests
A24 has built a modern lane for films that feel both elevated and emotionally raw, and The Death of Robin Hood appears engineered for that space. It is a recognizable myth with a less comfortable point of view. It is also a star-led project that still prioritizes psychology over spectacle.
Importantly, the premise is not nihilistic. “Salvation” is a loaded word. It implies a genuine chance at transformation, or at least a final attempt at truth. The film’s hook is not just that Robin might die. It is that Robin might finally see himself clearly before he does.
Release details, and what to watch for next
A24 has dated The Death of Robin Hood for a nationwide release on June 19, 2026. The running time is not yet confirmed. In the meantime, the most meaningful signal is the positioning: a serious, adult reinterpretation that treats Robin Hood less like a brand and more like a burden.
When the marketing ramps, the key question will be simple. Does the film deliver a new Robin Hood, or does it deliver a story about how legends overwrite the people they are built on?
