It is 1908. Percy Stow, seen by many as one of the founders of British cinema, directs his latest short film: Robin Hood and his Merry Men. It is the very first screen adaptation of the Robin Hood legend.

14 years later. Hollywood film star Douglas Fairbanks writes, produces, and stars in the dashingly titled Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood. It is one of the most expensive features ever made, but thankfully for Fairbanks it also becomes one of the most financially successful.

Another 16 years later. Michael Curtiz and William Keighley direct The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone. Boosted by an Academy Award-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, it goes on to become the definitive screen telling of Robin Hood.

As the years pass by, more and more adaptations of Robin Hood are created. In 1953 the BBC are the first to bring Robin to television, in a short-run serial starring future Doctor Who star Patrick Troughton. Two years later Richard Greene stars in a long-running television series at rival broadcaster ITV. In 1973 Walt Disney Pictures releases an animated feature film in which all of the popular characters are re-imagined as anthropomorphic animals.

As a popular folkloric character, Robin Hood has demonstrated a remarkable popularity and resilience with both production studios and mass audiences alike. He has been adapted for purposes both serious and comic, realistic and fantastical, in live action and animation, and more.

One of the more famous adaptations – if not the most widely acclaimed – came in 1991, when Warner Bros distributed the Morgan Creek production Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This action vehicle for actor Kevin Costner caught him at the absolute height of his career, was all-but stolen by an ascendant and hugely funny Alan Rickman, and redefined Robin Hood for a new generation of moviegoers. Its tie-in song, a musical ballad performed by rock star Bryan Adams, remains the 13th highest-selling single of all time. It also grossed more than US$390 million upon release. Adjusting for inflation, that would mean close to US$900 million in today’s money.

While clearly loved by audiences, Prince of Thieves was less popular among film critics. The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan considered it ‘muddled’ and ‘fitfully effective’.^[1] Time’s Richard Corliss claimed ‘the enterprise lacks passion, or even a sense of inspired fun.’^[2] In the Washington Post, critic Hal Hinson felt the film was ‘much more of a chore to sit through than it should be.’^[3] Even Roger Ebert, a great champion of popular cinema, considered it ‘murky, unfocused, violent and depressing.’^[4]

I feel Prince of Thieves’ critical standing has improved a little with time, but it remains a film with a lot of detractors. For my own part, I first watched it in an Australian cinema as a teenager. I adored it then. I continue to adore it now. For me it is delightful comfort viewing: an exciting swashbuckler with a distinctive tone, knotty and unexpected edges, and a great take on its perennial subject matter.

The origins of Robin Hood: Princes of Thieves lie in a 90-page film treatment by writer/producer Pen Densham. He saw potential in a slightly re-imagined take on Robin Hood, one that relied less on the jovial swashbuckling of the Curtis/Keighley classic and more on Steven Spielberg’s 1981 action film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The tone could be pushed a little darker, and the action somewhat more violent, but still with a populist tone and plenty of humour in the characters and dialogue.

The English-born Densham was a former photographer turned documentary filmmaker. After moving to Toronto, he and his producing partner John Watson worked as consultants for several Hollywood productions including Rocky II (1979), Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), and Escape to Victory (1981). In 1985 Densham and Watson co-wrote and directed the teen drama The Zoo Gang for New World Pictures, and later wrote the screenplay to Stan Winston’s 1990 feature A Gnome Named Gnorm.

Densham and Watson collaborated again on their screenplay for Robin Hood, based on Densham’s original treatment.

Densham said: ‘The idea came to me about doing Robin Hood, by putting a rich asshole on the screen who’s spoiled silly, who burns his childhood friend’s hair and what he ends up doing is learning to risk his life for the future of peasant children.’^[5]

There are essentially two versions of the Robin Hood legend. In one of them, Robin is a peasant that rises up against the upper classes on behalf of his fellow countrymen. In the other, Robin is an aristocrat himself and betrays his own class for the benefit of the commoners.The former version’s name is typically Robin of Locksley, while the latter is most often named Robin or Robert, Earl of Huntingdon. Densham’s treatment combined the name of the former with the status of the latter.

The Densham/Watson screenplay sparked a sudden interest among Hollywood’s studios and production companies, piquing the interest of producers and executives with its more contemporary take on the material. It was during this time that the screenplay came to the attention of Morgan Creek Productions head James G. Robinson. ‘I heard through the grapevine that there was a very hot screenplay on Robin Hood,’ he said, ‘so I arranged to receive the script on February 13th, 1990. I took it home that evening and asked two members of our staff to also take it home. We all read it overnight, discussed it the next morning and, by noon of February 14th – Saint Valentine’s Day – were determined to get it.’^[6]

Morgan Creek had been founded in 1988 by Robinson and fellow producer Joe Roth. The company’s initial slate of film productions were distributed through 20th Century Fox, and included Christopher Cain’s western Young Guns, David Cronenberg’s thriller Dead Ringers, and David S. Ward’s comedy Major League. By the start of 1990 the company had produced and released six films with a future slate that included Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, and sequels Young Guns II and The Exorcist III. Robinson in particular was looking to up the scale of Morgan Creek’s productions, as well as to shift the distribution agreement from Fox to Warner Bros. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was the perfect opportunity to do both.

On 14 February Robinson sent Densham and Watson an offer via their agent. In an attempt to pick up the screenplay ahead of any studio rivals, he offered the pair US$1.2 million on the condition they accepted the deal that same day.

Not long after Prince of Thieves was set up at Morgan Creek and Warner Bros, it was forced into a production race with two unrelated Robin Hood films already in development.

By the time Morgan Creek entered the race, 20th Century Fox was already two years into preparing what was provisionally titled The Adventures of Robin Hood. Popular director John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard) had signed on to direct the film which, like Densham and Watson’s screenplay, followed a Robin from the nobility who abandoned his reckless ways once confronted with social injustice. The screenplay, by Mark Allen Smith, also introduced historical conflict between the English Saxons and Normans at the time.

As a high-budget, studio-led blockbuster, Fox’s Robin Hood was able to pay handsomely for a lead actor. Offers had gone out at one point or another to most key male actors in the industry, with Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner emerging as the likeliest candidates.

Over at Tri-Star Pictures, director Ed Zwick (Glory) was producing a version written by thirtysomething’s Susan Shilliday, with colleague Marshall Herskovitz directing. This adaptation was rumoured to be more light-hearted than the Fox version, and focused on a younger iteration of Robin Hood avenging his father’s murder.

In July 1990 Morgan Creek announced their casting of Kevin Costner as Robin Hood, with shooting on Prince of Thieves to commence in early September. The casting took Costner entirely out of the running for Fox’s production, leading studio head Joe Roth to make a spectacular public outburst. In what became front page news for industry paper Variety, Roth accused both Morgan Creek and Tri-Star of acting ‘unjustly, if not immorally’ in developing their own Robin Hood projects. He also condemned the prestigious William Morris Agency, which not only represented John McTiernan and Mark Allen Smith but also Pen Densham and John Watson. His argument went that in representing key talent for both pictures, the agency had ignored a clear conflict of interest.

What made the situation so strange was that Joe Roth had co-founded Morgan Creek with James G. Robinson, and had been instrumental in setting up their distribution agreement with Fox. After Roth left the production company to run the studio, Robinson appeared to have not only copied a key project but taken away the distribution arrangement as well. ‘Joe and I are the best of friends,’ Robinson claimed. ‘When I read that stuff in the papers, I figure it’s just a studio head talking.’^[7] Roth, for his part, refused to make further comments.

‘We are in the middle of our process of deciding where to go on The Adventures of Robin Hood,’ said Roth’s chief of production Roger Birnbaum. ‘One of the other companies has announced the signing of a major star and that has given us pause. . I still have a magnificent screenplay. We may make it in the immediate future or in a couple of years.’^[8]

Competing projects like this have been happening in Hollywood for decades, and will undoubtedly continue to happen for years into the future. In some cases it is genuinely a case of two similar projects reaching production simultaneously after years of development, as was the case in 1998 with Deep Impact and Armageddon. At other times a slow-developing studio tentpole like The Abyss (1989) will gather enough hype and anticipation that smaller production companies will rapidly develop their own cheap competitors to cash in in advance (Deepstar Six, Leviathan, The Rift).

History tends to show that getting into cinemas first does not necessarily lead to a commercial advantage. Penny Marshall’s Big (1988) came to cinemas at the tail end of a spate of similar movies and was a massive hit. Armageddon followed Deep Planet, but made the most revenue. When Disney’s Mission to Mars went up against Warner Bros’ Red Planet in 2000, both films failed. All that said, the casting of Costner in Prince of Thieves clearly spooked Fox and Tri-Star. The Tri-Star production undertook some location scouting before failing to proceed. The Fox version was aggressively downsized, with McTiernan stepping back to produce rather than direct, and John Irvin (Hamburger Hill) helming the film.

Retitled as simply Robin Hood, the McTiernan production received rewrites from Sam Resnick and John McGrath. It starred Patrick Bergen as Robin and Uma Thurman as Maid Marian, with German star Jürgen Prochnow playing the villainous Sir Miles Falconet. The film was largely shot on location in Cheshire, England, and North Wales. While Robin Hood did receive some international distribution, including to Australia and Japan, in the USA it went direct to television on the Fox Network. A major production had been transformed into a cheap cash-in, tactically broadcast four weeks before Prince of Thieves hit cinemas.

What did Morgan Creek do to tempt Kevin Costner away from 20th Century Fox and into a smaller, less well-developed production? They hired a director named Kevin Reynolds.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, the 38 year-old Reynolds co-wrote the 1984 hit Red Dawn before making his feature directing debut with the Steven Spielberg-produced film Fandango (1985). The film followed a college student road trip on the eve of the Vietnam War draft, and was based on a 1980 short film that Reynolds had made while a student at the University of Southern California (USC).

Reynolds had cast Kevin Costner in the lead role of Gardner Barnes. It was part of a critical year for Costner, who also co-starred in Lawrence Kasdan’s western Silverado and John Badham’s American Flyers. The two Kevins remained close friends after shooting Fandango.

Reynold’s second film was an Afghanistan-set war film titled The Beast (1988). While it has subsequently become something of a minor cult success, on release it was disastrously unsuccessful earning less than US$200,000.

While Reynolds did attempt to direct a third feature, it was perpetually locked in development with insufficient investment to proceed. It was while he waited for the funding to be secured that he was offered Prince of Thieves. ‘To be honest,’ said Reynolds, ‘I was never a giant Robin Hood fan, but I liked the story and the time period. I thought it would be intriguing to do a medieval action picture.’^[9]

There was also one element of the screenplay Reynolds found particularly appealing. ‘There’s scope for horror,’ he explained. ‘I found the subplot between the Sheriff and Mortianna [a witch] most intriguing and wanted to develop this dynamic further.’^[10]

Appealing to Reynolds was also the timeline: less than three months of preparation time before the shoot, and a fast-paced production schedule to get the film in theatres by June 1991.

It is reasonably clear that Reynolds was hired for two reasons. Firstly, his willingness to direct a feature on such a truncated schedule is something that would have led many other filmmakers to blanche or run away. Secondly, his friendship with Costner was clearly exploited as a gambit to tempt the actor away from 20th Century Fox and John McTiernan.

If there was any ill-feeling about this manipulation on James G. Robinson’s part, neither Kevin mentioned it. While promoting the film, Costner said: ‘It’s a pretty big statement, but I believe Kevin Reynolds will be one of our greatest American directors in the next ten to 15 years.’^[11]

Casting for Prince of Thieves was conducted at a breakneck pace; so rushed, in fact, that several key roles – notably the Sheriff of Nottingham – had not been filled when filming commenced in early September.

The film’s opening scenes take place in Jerusalem in 1194, where imprisoned English nobleman Robin of Locksley escapes custody with the help of the Moorish warrior Azeem. After pledging a life debt to Robin for helping him escape, Azeem accompanies him back to England.

The role of Azeem was played by Morgan Freeman. While the actor had been performing since 1964, it was only from 1989 that his screen career had catapulted him to mainstream fame. Much like Kevin Costner’s breakthrough in 1985, Freeman starred in four films in the space of one year. Between Glory, Lean on Me, Johnny Handsome, and Driving Miss Daisy – which earned him an Academy Award nomination – Freeman went from noted theatrical and screen actor to Hollywood stardom. Aside from a role in the critically panned comedy The Bonfire of the Vanities, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was his first onscreen role following the nomination.

Ever since Prince of Thieves’ original release, there has been a contention that the character of Azeem was plagiarised. In 1984 Goldcrest Films had produced a weekly television series, Robin of Sherwood, created and largely written by Richard Carpenter (Catweazle, Dick Turpin). Among Carpenter’s innovations in updating the Robin Hood legends was the introduction of Nasir, a Saracen warrior played by actor Mark Ryan. Over the three seasons of Carpenter’s series, Nasir became one of its most popular characters.

Jump forward to 1989, and one Densham and Watson’s key innovations to the legend is Azeem. While the character is distinct from Nasir, the basic premise would appear to be identical. The most common rumour contends that Carpenter found out about the existence of the Prince of Thieves character – then also called Nasir – via stunt artist Terry Walsh, who performed in both productions. While Carpenter considered filing a lawsuit, Walsh warned the Prince of Thieves production that Nasir was an original character and not part of the legend as Densham and Watson had apparently assumed. With a quick change of name from Nasir to Azeem, the producers avoided Carpenter’s lawsuit – and Carpenter allegedly refused to speak to Walsh ever again.

Despite some searching, I have yet to find any interview or first-hand account of this scenario having actually happened. That said, it continues to be reported around the Internet as fact. Considering all of the factors, my best guess is that Azeem is very likely to have been inspired by Nasir but that Carpenter would have struggled to make a case for plagiarism even if he planned to do so.

Despite claims to the contrary, Morgan Freeman is not the first actor of colour to play a member of Robin’s band. The 1989 children’s series Maid Marian and her Merry Men included Danny John-Jules (Red Dwarf) in the invented role of Barrington.

That said, the shadow of Nasir and Azeem does appear to loom large over post-1990s treatments of the Robin Hood folklore. The 1997 television series The New Adventures of Robin Hood featured Hakim Alston as Kemal, while Jamie Foxx played a reimagined Little John in Otto Bathurst’s Robin Hood (2018).

Casting the film’s villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham, proved unexpectedly difficult. The consensus among the producers was to approach Alan Rickman, then riding high on his role in John McTiernan’s Die Hard (1988) as the calculating terrorist Hans Gruber. Rickman, however, was not interested: he had most recently played another villain in Simon Wincer’s Quigley Down Under (1990) and didn’t want to be typecast as ‘the bad guy’. Furthermore, he was unimpressed by the idea of another film about Robin Hood, seeing it as something rather tired and stereotypical.

Alan Rickman turned down the Sheriff twice. He only accepted at the third approach, after reassurances from Kevin Reynolds that he could have extensive creative control over his character and contribute to the script.

It was Rickman that pushed hard for his character to be costumed entirely in black, and who developed the originally much more serious Sheriff into what he called ‘a cartoon in primary colours’. Kevin Reynolds cited Rickman as his personal favourite element of the film, noting: ‘the flamboyance of the sheriff – that’s Alan’.^[12]

Rickman said, ‘I didn’t want the film to disappear into all that historical business. I thought about Richard III and a rock guitarist and I said, “Let’s make it raven, so you know who’s coming”.’^[13]

To better develop the Sheriff’s dialogue, Rickman met with playwright Peter Barnes in a London restaurant. ‘I said, “will you have a look at this script because it’s terrible, and I need some good lines.” So he did, and, you know, with kind of pizza and bacon and egg going all over the script.’^[14] The Sheriff’s dialogue also received an unofficial spruce-up from Rickman’s friend and comedian Ruby Wax; the ‘I’ll cut your heart out with a spoon’ and ‘bring a friend’ lines are reportedly among Wax’s additions.

No one else knew of Reynolds and Rickman’s arrangement. His co-stars gamely stayed in character whenever he diverged from the screenplay, and improvised appropriately. Of Reynolds, Rickman said: ‘Nobody knew this was happening except him. And I knew it had worked because as I cleared the camera I saw about 80 members of the crew just go [gestures stifling laughter].’^[15]

Casting director Irene Starger recalled: ‘‘ It was sort of ironic that, between Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Alan was known for playing silky-smooth, darker characters; it’s a testament to his acting brilliance because he was, in real life, a deeply sensitive, kind and generous man.’^[16]

When Kevin Reynolds boarded the film, the role of Maid Marian had already been accepted by Robin Wright. Most famous for playing Princess Buttercup in Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride (1987), Wright had recently appeared in Phil Joanou’s neo-noir thriller State of Grace (1990).

Days before shooting, Wright contacted the production with the news that she was pregnant and would be unable to continue in the role. In her place Kevin Reynolds cast Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio – in part because Mastrantonio was already in the UK, having shot an adaptation of Uncle Vanya for the BBC. ‘I was here, I had a phone call, and then there was a script in my hands,’ she joked.

Mastrantonio had made her screen debut in 1983, playing opposite Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s Scarface. Three years later she received an Oscar nomination for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money. Subsequent films had included The January Man, The Abyss (both 1989), and Class Action (1991).

‘Just don’t ask me if Maid Marian was a feminist!” she said. ‘Marian isn’t portrayed as a feminist at all. She doesn’t even really choose Robin; he’s practically the only person of her station she finds likeable.’^[17]

Christian Slater rounded out the leading cast as Sherwood outlaw Will Scarlet, although the character he signed on to play was not exactly the character of the finished film. Slater said: ‘Several things were put into the script after I was cast. For instance, the fact that Robin Hood really screwed up my life when I was younger.’^[18]

The initial week of shooting Prince of Thieves was fraught with difficulty, requiring the production team to complete scenes that did not include Maid Marian or the Sheriff. As for the title character, post-production on Costner’s Dances with Wolves overran to the point where he only made it to England with three days to go.

The last-minute and truncated production schedule predictably caused frequent and growing challenges. Kevin Reynolds said: ‘I came into this picture only ten weeks before we started shooting. We have been struggling from day one as a result. The problem has never left us. We started in September with the English autumn already upon us, With each day there was a prospect of worsening weather and less light. By the time we got closer to Christmas, we were down to six hours of usable light a day.’^[19]

For his own part, Kevin Costner was concerned about the narrowing schedule. ‘It’s very dangerous to be so fast,’ he explained in an Entertainment Weekly article. ‘We are relying on the weather, and every time the weather turns against us we could get behind. When that happens there is always the feeling that certain people want to do something about it to shorten the filming time. That is not always the cure.’^[20]

Costner and Reynolds disagreed over whether or not Robin should have an English accent. The former was intent on performing one, while the latter felt it would distract an American audience used to Costner’s natural voice. In the end Reynolds won out, and both Costner and Christian Slater used their own accents throughout. Mastrantonio, who lived in London at the time, was allowed to sound English.

Of course it is always fun at parties to argue that medieval English sounds very little like what international audiences think of as English – which is generally the ‘received pronunciation’ performed on the BBC throughout the 20th century. Out of all of the live accents of English around the world today, the one that remains the closest to the Middle Ages is likely found in America’s Appalachia region. Thus it is possible to argue that, out of the entire Prince of Thieves cast, it is indeed Costner who affects the closest to an authentic accent anyway.

This all ignores the fact that the noble characters like Robin, Marian, and the Sheriff would have likely spoken French.

A variety of locations were used to represent 12th century Nottinghamshire, and it is fair to say that they were selected on the assumption that a popular audience would not be familiar with them. In addition to scenes shot in Yorkshire, Northumberland, Wiltshire, and Buckinghamshire, what was presented on screen as Nottingham Castle was actually Carcassonne in southern France. Indeed it appears that no part of the finished film was actually shot in Nottingham at all, and the genuine Sherwood Forest does not appear.

Key indoor scenes, including the entire Jerusalem prologue, were recorded on the soundstages of Shepperton Studios, London.

As noted above, Prince of Thieves opens in 1194 Jerusalem, where Robin and his companion Peter Dubois (Liam Halligan) stage an escape from prison: the Moor Azeem joins them, but Peter is mortally wounded. Before dying, he makes Robin pledge to protect his sister Marian. Azeem, having been freed by Robin, pledges to accompany him until he has served his life debt.

It is possibly worth noting that no such life debt tradition exists.

Back in England, Robin’s father Lord Locksley is interrupted one night by the arrival of masked conspirators led by the Sheriff of Nottingham. With King Richard I overseas on crusade, the Sheriff intends to overthrow his rule with the support of England’s wealthy barons – of whom Locksley is one. When Locksley refuses, he is murdered by the mob.

Locksley was played by English actor Brian Blessed. A noted performer of stage and screen, Blessed has for the bulk of his career been best associated with his thick beard and highly theatricalised voice. He is surprisingly subdued here by comparison to other roles, which include Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon (1980), Caesar Augustus in I. Claudius (1976), the Duke of Exeter in Henry V (1989), as well as assorted characters in the cult science fiction series Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, and Space: 1999.

Upon their arrival in England, Robin and Azeem meet a boy running from the Sheriff’s men. When their leader, the Sheriff’s cousin Sir Guy of Gisbourne, demands the boy be handed over, Robin refuses and a fight ensues. Several of the Sheriff’s men are killed, and Gisbourne is forced to flee.

Gisbourne was played by Canadian actor Michael Wincott. Speaking about his role, Wincott said: ‘It’s terrific to play an out-and-out villain. The villains are always so much more interesting to play – and this guy is a real son of a bitch.’^[21]

Michael Wincott made his film debut at the age of 18 when he starred in the 1976 drama Earthbound. His first major appearance was in Michael Cimino’s The Sicilian (1987), opposite Christopher Lambert. From there he divided his time between cinema and New York theatre, where he performed opposite Eric Bogosian, Kevin Bacon, Joan Cusack, Alec Baldwin, and John Malkovich. Wincott built up a particularly strong relationship with director Oliver Stone, appearing in three of his films in a row: Talk Radio (based on Bogosian’s play, 1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and The Doors (1991).

Wincott’s performance in Prince of Thieves was, in fact, cruel and mean-spirited enough that early studio feedback indicated he was a preferable choice for the Sheriff rather than Alan Rickman. The production team held firm, and Gisbourne became a perfect humourless foil to the Sheriff’s more heightened persona.

Robin and Azeem’s confrontation with Gisbourne was shot at Sycamore Gap along Hadrian’s Wall. The location, while picturesque, was in Northumberland less than 30 kilometres from the Scottish border – a long way for Robin to go on his way to Nottingham.

In September 2023, the sycamore featured in this scene was cut down in an act of vandalism. The iconic tree had become as famous for its appearance in Prince of Thieves as it was for the centuries it had stood there. In 2016 it had been voted by the public to be English Tree of the Year.^[22]

The boy who hides in the tree, later revealed to be Little John’s son Wulf, was played by Daniel (later Danny) Newman. For his performance here the Youth in Film organisation awarded him Best Young Actor Co-Starring in a Motion Picture. He later appeared in director Paul W.S. Anderson’s debut feature Shopping (1994), as well TV productions including The Borrowers (1992), Absolutely Fabulous (1995), and A Touch of Frost (1996).

Robin and Azeem reach the Locksley estate to find the castle a burned-out shell and Lord Locksley’s corpse hanging in a gibbet. The sole survivor is Locksley’s servant Duncan, whose eyes have been gouged out by Gisbourne. It is Duncan who confesses to Robin that his father was falsely condemned for witchcraft and the family’s lands taken over by Nottingham.

Duncan was played by Walter Sparrow. Born in 1927, Sparrow was a Royal Shakespeare Company veteran as well as a regular face on British television, guest starring in a wide array of drama and comedy programs including Emmerdale Farm, Hugh and I, All Creatures Great and Small, Rumpole of the Bailey, and Only Fools and Horses. His performance here led to a career resurgence, with roles in the films The Secret Garden (1993), Now and Then (1995), Jane Eyre (1996), The Woodlanders (1997), and Ever After (1998). He died, aged 73, in 2000.

Old Wardour Castle in Tisbury was used as the exterior of the Locksley estate. Built in the 14th century, it sustained major damage during the English Civil War. As a result, the building was able to be used as both an intact castle and a collapsed ruin simply by changing the angle from which it was filmed.

In Nottingham the Sheriff consults with Mortianna, a witch who lives in hiding beneath the castle, who foretells the return of King Richard and her own death at the hands of ‘the painted man’.

Mortianna was played by Geraldine McEwan, a widely acclaimed actor of British stage and screen and five-time Olivier award nominee. Her most famous screen role came more than a decade after Prince of Thieves, when she played the role of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple for the BBC. ‘It is a wonderful role,’ she said, ‘and very different to anything I have done before.’^[23]

Robin reunites with Lady Marian, whom he bullied as a child, to inform her of her brother’s death. While at Marian’s estate – shot at Hulne Priory, Northumberland – Robin and Azeem are ambushed by Gisbourne before taking shelter in Sherwood Forest. There they meet and join Little John, Will Scarlet, and their band of outlaws.

Little John was played by Nick Brimble. Born in Bristol, Brimble had played alongside Bob Hoskins and Steven Berkoff on the stage before forming a television career. Immediately prior to Prince of Thieves he had played the monster in Roger Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound (1990), opposite John Hurt and Raul Julia. Brimble originally aimed for the role of Guy of Gisbourne before being cast as Little by Kevin Reynolds.

One actor who auditioned for Little John was Clive Mantle, who had already played the role for three years in Robin of Sherwood. It seems likely that earlier role precluded him from being selected for the new one.

Robin and John’s duel on the river was filmed at the Aysgarth Falls in North Yorkshire. Costner and Brimble were forced to play out the scene in freezing water. Brimble said: ‘From the first shot to the last we were fighting in that water and we weren’t allowed to wear wetsuits under our costumes because they restrict your movement while fighting. But it was freezing. During lunch we just stood next to a fire to warm up, before putting our wet costumes back on and going again.’^[24]

The river sequence introduces a number of smaller supporting characters among the outlaws. They include Soo Druet as John’s wife Fanny, Daniel Peacock as David of Doncaster, and Jack Wild as Much the Miller’s son (a common figure in Robin Hood lore).

Most of the Sherwood Forest scenes in the film – including those set within the outlaw’s camp – were shot in Buckinghamshire’s Burnham Beeches. Shooting there was regularly disrupted from planes arriving and departing from nearby Heathrow Airport. When weather conditions required aircraft to divert from their standard routes, shooting was disrupted as often as three times every 10 minutes.

Robin next sneaks into a church service in Nottingham to speak with the Bishop of Hereford about his father’s murder, only to discover the Bishop is complicit in the Sheriff’s crimes.

The Bishop was played by Harold Innocent. Like Walter Sparrow, Innocent was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a regular face on television screens. He appeared in the series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Doctor Who, Callan, The Professionals, Minder, Inspector Morse, Porterhouse Blues, and EastEnders. In 1989 he played the Duke of Burgundy in the Kenneth Branagh film Henry V.

The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great in London stood in for the Nottingham Cathedral interior. The location has been used repeatedly in British cinema, including the films Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Sherlock Holmes (2009).

To challenge and ultimately overthrow the Sheriff, Robin leads and trains the outlaws and uses them to hold up the Sheriff’s carriages and steal from Nottinghamshire’s wealthy nobles. Their raids incense the Sheriff, who has been gathering funds to mount a coup d’etat against the absent King Richard I who is overseas on crusade.

Introduced during this middle sequence of the film is Michael McShane as Friar Tuck, reimagined for the film as a boozy, irreverent preacher. Reynolds saw McShane performing on the British comedy game show Whose Line is it Anyway, and invited the actor to audition. A slightly puzzled reaction returned from McShane’s agent: the actor had already auditioned for Friar Tuck and been rejected. The second time was the charm, and McShane was added to the cast.

When John’s pregnant wife Fanny suffers a breach birth, Azeem steps in to perform a caesarean section – shocking Tuck and leading to him accepting Azeem despite their differences of religion. It is a key scene for the character, providing him with some depth of character and giving the film an opportunity to treat Islam with some uncharacteristic respect for a Hollywood production.

This seems as good a point as any to cover some of Princes of Thieves’ egregious historical inaccuracies. In its defence, the film never tries to represent itself as anything approaching fidelity to the real world. That in mind, it still seems likely anybody with an education in medieval history will be driven up the wall by some of the glaring errors (like Azeem owning a telescope roughly 400 years before they were invented, or the Sheriff’s very 20th century way of reporting the time).

The idea that Azeem would understand how to perform a c-section is not, in itself, too unlikely a stretch. The practice was performed as early as the 3rd century BCE. The first recorded instance in medieval Europe appears to be in 14th century Prague. What does make the scene unlikely is that Fanny is up and walking around within a day, something that seems incredibly unlikely even by today’s medical standards. In addition the film conveniently sidesteps the overwhelming risk of death from blood loss or infection. While medieval c-sections were performed, they were almost entirely done when there was no reasonable expectation of the mother surviving birth.

One could go on listing the mistakes – Friar Tuck predates the invention of friars, Azeem knows a recipe for gunpowder well before the Middle East did, and the weapons and armour are almost universally out of whack historically speaking. Even in an industry where historically accuracy has always been lackadaisical, Prince of Thieves seems almost wilfully egregious. A good friend once argued that the film could – and possibly even should – qualify as a fantasy picture. I must admit to an extent I see their point. My own advice is to simply ignore the problem and enjoy the action and the characters. To do anything else invites inevitable frustration.

After repeated failures to capture or kill Robin, the Sheriff – upon Mortianna’s advice – resorts to hiring an army of Celts to raze the Sherwood Forest community to the ground. Marian is taken prisoner, and the Sheriff’s soldiers follow Duncan into the forest to determine the village’s location. Robin disappears in the fight and is presumed dead. Several prisoners are taken and sentenced to death, including Will Scarlet and John and Fanny’s son Wulf. To save the lives of the captured children, Marian agrees to marry the Sheriff – thus giving him a claim to the throne via her noble title.

The Celts represent more ahistorical nonsense, of course, and simply assume the role of extremely violent and dangerous barbarian warriors. The Celt leader was played by Pat Roach, a professional wrestler and actor with a long legacy of playing various thugs and henchmen in popular film including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Clash of the Titans, Never Say Never Again, A Clockwork Orange, and Conan the Destroyer. In 1988 he played the role of General Kael in Ron Howard’s Willow. Looking back at his career shortly before his death in 2004, Roach remarked: ‘Twenty or so years ago, there weren’t so many big, ugly guys around, so there was plenty of work for me.’^[25]

The rescue of Robin’s companions and the prevention of Marian’s marriage to the Sheriff forms the climax of the picture.

The film’s sole use of coarse language – Christian Slater’s improvised cry of ‘fuck me, he cleared it!’ – was redubbed in many international markets including Australia and the United Kingdom to ensure a family friendly PG rating. The original line was reinstated years later in DVD editions of the film.

Prince of Thieves’ screenplay had always concluded with what was hoped to be a show-stealing cameo, as Robin and Marian’s wedding is interrupted by the arrival of her cousin King Richard the Lionheart. While the production team searched for a suitable famous – and willing – movie star, Warner Bros communicated their own suggestion: English comic actor John Cleese. The idea was met with open hostility by producers, fearing it would simply make the final scene look like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Densham recalled: ‘‘I couldn’t stomach that because I felt all of the care, all of the investment, all the love, all the effort that the characters were playing all came down to a joke.’^[26]

Densham personally approached agent Michael Ovitz, hoping to convince his client Sean Connery to accept the role. It was effectively a ‘hail mary’ approach, since Prince of Thieves was running over budget and could not afford Connery’s expected fee of US$1 million dollars. At the same time it seemed a perfect choice, not only due to Connery having co-starring with Kevin Costner in The Untouchables (1987) but also because Connery had once played Robin Hood himself in Robin and Marian (1976).

Sean Connery ultimately did agree to cameo in the film, and to not be credited on-screen (lest audiences spent the entire film waiting for his arrival). In return, Morgan Creek donated US$250,000 to a Scottish hospital of the actor’s choice.

On 25 March 1991, during post-production on Prince of Thieves, Kevin Costner was awarded Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards. Dances with Wolves won seven Oscars in total from an impressive 12 nominations. With Costner’s fame reaching an all-time peak, it provided a significant boost to Prince of Thieves’ marketing.

In April 1991, a Sacramento test screening scored a winning 92 per cent approval rating from its audience. While it bode well for the film’s commercial chances, the producers grew worried that the audience voted the Sheriff of Nottingham as their favourite character. The bulk of the film’s marketing strategy was based around Kevin Costner, and there were growing fears that Alan Rickman’s showy performance would disrupt and unbalance the film.

While Kevin Reynolds was in London supervising the film’s final ADR (additional dialogue recording) sessions, the film’s producers literally locked editor John Boyle out of the cutting room and supervised their own edit of the movie. Their primary goal: reduce the Sheriff’s presence onscreen and increase Robin’s. Upon his return to Los Angeles, Reynolds was incensed by what his producers had done. ‘I didn’t feel like it was an improvement at all,” he said. “I thought in a number of places it was pretty awkward and embarrassing.’^[27]

Reynolds did not participate in the latter stages of post-production, and was conspicuously absent when Warner Bros first screened the finished film in New Orleans. ‘I’m disappointed he’s not here,’ said Costner at the time, ‘and I think he’s disappointed that he couldn’t make everything be exactly his way.’^[28] By this stage Reynolds had not only abandoned his own film; he had stopped talking to Costner at all. Rumours circulated that Reynolds felt betrayed, and had expected the actor to use his industry weight to provide support.

John Watson, as one of the producers who pushed Reynolds out of the edit, said ‘I think what we put out in the theatres was the best version at that time.’^[29]

So what was lost? In 2003 Warner Bros released an extended edition of the film to home video, adding about 12 minutes of lost footage that primarily features Alan Rickman. The scenes add significant development to the Sheriff and Mortianna’s relationship, as well as the Sheriff’s overall plans to steal England from the king. Critically the new scenes are remarkably dark in nature, stripping Mortianna of her supernatural powers as well as the Sheriff’s scribe getting his tongue cut out for perceived insolence.

In any debate over the creative control of films, or director-versus-producer conflicts, it is typical to side with the director – seen as the ‘creative’ – over their producers – seen as ‘the money’. In this case it is difficult to agree with Reynolds: the additional sequences disrupt and muddy the overall light-hearted tone of the complete film, and have the unintended consequence of making Rickman’s Sheriff less amusing. The extended cut is worth viewing, but the theatrical edit remains the better film.

Michael Kamen composed the film’s musical score: a rich, emotive soundtrack performed by a 110-piece orchestra. It is one of Prince of Thieves’ strongest assets, boasting complex arrangements and hugely memorable themes. So effective was Kamen’s main theme that Morgan Creek Productions used it to accompany their logo before all of their subsequent features. It was later co-opted by Walt Disney Pictures for the same purpose, despite Disney having had no participation whatsoever in the original film.

‘When I was a kid watching the old Robin Hood movies,’ said Kamen, ‘it bothered me to hear contemporary music in the background. Musicians in the 12th century had a lovely, virile sense of rhythm, and all of that went into this score: plucks of strings, steady drum beats, piercing cries of horns.’^[30] To enhance the old-fashioned nature of his score, Kamen relied on a variety of medieval instruments – including many sourced from the orchestra musicians themselves.

Two pop songs were commissioned for the film, each adapting melodies composed by Kamen. “Wild Times”, performed by ELO co-founder Jeff Lynne, was largely abandoned in favour of the Bryan Adams ballad “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. While “Wild Times” did make it onto the official soundtrack album, it was the Adams song that became a massive popular hit.

Boasting a music video shot by director Julien Temple (Absolute Beginners), the single reached number one in the music charts across 19 different countries. In the United Kingdom it retained that position for an unprecedented 16 weeks. As of 2024, the 15 million units sold worldwide puts it among the most successful pop songs of all time. As far as movie tie-ins go, only Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” (Titanic), Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” (The Bodyguard), and Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” have sold more.

To accompany the film’s release, toy manufacturer Kenner released a range of tie-in action figures. As a cost-cutting measure most of the range was modified from pre-existing moulds for their old Star Wars and Super Powers lines. While Robin was a pared-back Superman and Friar Tuck a modified Gamorrrean guard, the large Sherwood Forest playset was a redressed Ewok village.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was released in the USA on 14 June 1991. Without significant competition, it easily opened in pole position with an opening weekend gross of US$25.6 million. By the end of its theatrical run, it had grossed US$165.5 million; well ahead of its estimated US$48m budget. Worldwide the film grossed in excess of US$390 million. Even adjusting for inflation, it remains by far Morgan Creek’s most successful ever production. Its profitability encouraged the company to attempt further films on a mid-range budget: it worked for Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans (1992), but failed for Freejack (1992), Diabolique (1996), and particularly Soldier (1998).

The one-two punch of Dances with Wolves and Prince of Thieves made Costner one of Hollywood’s most popular and in-demand actors. Over the subsequent half-decade he headlined a string of hit films including JFK (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), and A Perfect World (1993).

Morgan Freeman also successfully leveraged the success of Prince of Thieves, actively kicking his performing career into a new populist phase including Unforgiven (1992), The Power of One (1992), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Outbreak (1995), Seven (1996), Chain Reaction (1996), and Amistad (1997).

Within two years Costner and Reynolds’ relationship had been repaired enough for Costner to co-produce Reynolds’ Easter Island drama Rapa Nui (1994). He subsequently drafted Reynolds to direct the massively expensive Universal Pictures tentpole Waterworld (1995). When the stress of that troubled production went sour, Reynolds once again walked off the set – leaving Costner to direct the remainder of the film himself.

Perhaps the fourth time was the charm: in 2012 Reynolds directed Costner’s television miniseries Hatfields & McCoys. Both the series and Reynolds received Emmy nominations, while Costner won.

Prince of Thieves planted a relatively significant footprint on American popular culture. For one thing it stimulated studio interest in period swashbucklers and medieval action after a long fallow period for the genre. In the immediate years following its release came the likes of The Last of the Mohicans (1992), First Knight (1995), Rob Roy (1995), Braveheart (1995), Cutthroat Island (1995), The Mask of Zorro (1998), and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). Even comic actor and director Mel Brooks got in on the act with his parodic comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).

Of particular note was Stephen Herek’s The Three Musketeers (1993), produced by Walt Disney Pictures. The film not only cribbed from Prince of Thieves stylistically, it literally borrowed Thieves’ lead henchman (Michael Wincott) and composer (Michael Kamen) as well as another 63 members of its stunt artists and production crew.

Looking back at Prince of Thieves, it is difficult not to view it with considerable affection. Weirdly its greatest asset is far and away Michael Kamen’s score, which unites and uplifts an often-times uneven and contradictory film. Not only is it Kamen’s strongest orchestral work – and that is against the likes of Highlander, Lethal Weapon, and Die Hard – it is one of the most evocative and uplifting scores of its decade.

Underneath this encompassing layer is a curious mixture of good elements and bad, and every gradient of quality in-between. Perhaps the film’s greatest fault is its tone, which ranges from broad comedy to bleak drama. Even the film’s visual aesthetic, courtesy of cinematographer Douglas Milsome (Full Metal Jacket), veers unexpectedly from shaky handheld to carefully composed with a genuinely idiosyncratic approach to lenses. Without that Kamen score to knot the various scenes together, it almost feels like two films: one large-scale and splendid, and the other viscerally scrappy and grotesque.

Equally fascinating is the film’s approach to religion, allowing Christian and Muslim characters to share mutual respect in a manner that would almost entirely elude Hollywood within the subsequent decade. When the extended edition of the film is considered, the monstrous presentation of the Sheriff and Mortianna’s black magic favours the representation of Islam ever more: the enemy of Christianity is not Islam but Satanism. Much of the positive representation of Islam comes via Morgan Freeman’s performance and the screenplay’s representation of Azeem, who is intelligent, well-spoken, and hugely dignified.

Even when the film’s specific depiction of Christianity is examined, it plays with a remarkable moral strength. It posits a community-level ‘real’ Christianity of the poor, typified by Tuck, against the morally corrupt and wealthy ‘false’ version of the same – and takes specific pains to demonstrate one prevailing over the other.

Other successful elements of the film stand out like wheat among the chaff. Alan Rickman’s deliberate transformation of the Sheriff from stock villain to comedy highlight is a visible stroke of genius. For those engaged in the drama he is a gleefully outlandish figure, and for those unimpressed by the film in general he is a properly amusing point of relief. That he dominates the film at partial expense of its protagonist is not even unusual; one can see the same effect caused by Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, not to mention Claude Rains in Michael Curtiz’s 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Rickman deliberately avoided villainous roles after Prince of Thieves. By contrast Michael Wincott positively embraced them, not only appearing in The Three Musketeers but also 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), The Crow (1994), Strange Days (1995), and Metro (1997). He is a tremendous actor and hugely underrated. Viewers that enjoyed his gravelly turn in Robin Hood should actively seek out the likes of Basquiat (1996) and Nope (2022) to see just how great he can be.

Produced in a dizzying rush, inconsistent in tone, and boasting just about as many poor filmmaking decisions as good ones, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves nonetheless maintains a strong hold on my affections. The more I examine it, the more interesting it becomes. I do not think its cast and crew were all aiming in the same direction when they made it, but I do think each individual aim was true. I think this sword-fighting adventure film is deeply underrated, and really just that little bit and idiosyncratically wonderful.

^[1] Kenneth Turan, “Robin: medieval dash, new age muddle”, Los Angeles Times, 14 June 1991.

^[2] Richard Corliss, “Stranded in Sherwood Forest”, Time, 24 June 1991.

^[3] Hal Hinson, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, Washington Post, 14 June 1991.

^[4] Roger Ebert, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, Chicago Sun-Times, 14 June 1991.

^[5] Katie Hogan, “Screenwriters Pen Densham and John Watson talk Robin Hood: Princes of Thieves”, Film Hound, 2023.

^[6] Garth Pearce, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: The original movie book, Mallard Press, 1991.

^[7] Nina Easton, “A Flock of Robins : Producers Rush Projects but a Culling Is Expected”, Los Angeles Times, 26 July 1990.

^[8] Nina Easton, “A Flock of Robins : Producers Rush Projects but a Culling Is Expected”, Los Angeles Times, 26 July 1990.

^[9] Garth Pearce, “Behind-the-scenes trouble during Robin Hood:, Entertainment Weekly, 21 June 1991.

^[10] Alan Jones, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, Cinefantastique Vol 21 No 6, June 1991

^[11] Garth Pearce, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: The original movie book, Mallard Press, 1991.

^[12] Ann McFerran, “Alan Rickman: villain”, Entertainment Weekly, 9 August 1991.

^[13] Ann McFerran, “Alan Rickman: villain”, Entertainment Weekly, 9 August 1991.

^[14] Jack Malvern, “Rickman rewrites rules on playing the bad guy”, Sunday Times, 17 April 2015.

^[15] Jack Malvern, “Rickman rewrites rules on playing the bad guy”, Sunday Times, 17 April 2015.

^[16] Ashley Carter, “Ilene Starger on Her Experience as Casting Director, Leftlion, 21 July 2021.

^[17] Cynthia Rose, “Robin Hood’s new Maid Marian”, Entertainment Weekly, 26 July 1991.

^[18] Garth Pearce, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: The original movie book, Mallard Press, 1991.

^[19] Garth Pearce, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: The original movie book, Mallard Press, 1991.

^[20] Garth Pearce, “Behind-the-scenes trouble during Robin Hood:, Entertainment Weekly, 21 June 1991.

^[21] Garth Pearce, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: The original movie book, Mallard Press, 1991.

^[22] “One of the world’s most photographed trees has been cut down”, AAP, 29 September 2023.

^[23] Garth Pearce, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: The original movie book, Mallard Press, 1991.

^[24] Ashley Carter, “Nick Brimble on an Awkward Premiere and Shooting in a Waterfall”, Leftlion, 19 July 2021.

^[25] Quoted in “Pat Roach British actor and wrestler, best known for role in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet”, The Herald, 19 July 2004.

^[26] Ryan Parker, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Nearly Featured John Cleese as King Richard”, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 June 2021.

^[27] Garth Pearce, “Behind-the-scenes trouble during Robin Hood:, Entertainment Weekly, 21 June 1991.

^[28] Garth Pearce, “Behind-the-scenes trouble during Robin Hood:, Entertainment Weekly, 21 June 1991.

^[29] Katie Hogan, “Screenwriters Pen Densham and John Watson talk Robin Hood: Princes of Thieves”, Film Hound, 2023.

^[30] Stacey Okun, “The “Prince of Thieves” score gets medieval”, Entertainment Weekly, 21 June 1991.