Hugh Jackman’s Dark Turn in ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Fails to Win Over Audiences, Earning a Disappointing CinemaScore
Hugh Jackman is no stranger to playing broken, morally complex men on screen, but it turns out general audiences were not quite ready for this particular version of the journey. A24’s R-rated revisionist drama ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ has landed a C+ CinemaScore on opening weekend, a result that signals real trouble for the film’s box office legs despite the prestige pedigree behind it.
Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ is a revisionist take on the oft-rebooted folk legend, following the aged vigilante as he meets a mysterious woman and young girl after being critically injured. A24 acquired domestic distribution rights to the film for around four million dollars.
Sarnoski strips away the Errol Flynn archetype of a cheery hero in green tights, reimagining Robin Hood as a medieval equivalent of a violent thief and murderer mythologized for clashing with oppressive rulers, someone who has killed women, children, and whole families and can no longer remember all the blood debts he has left behind. It is a bold creative swing, but one that clearly did not land with the Friday night crowd.
The critical response to the film was mixed-positive overall, with reviewers largely praising the craft, Jackman’s commitment, Sarnoski’s atmosphere, and the bruised medieval texture of the production, while lower scores pushed back against the film’s bleakness, slow pacing, and heavy-handed deconstruction of the Robin Hood mythology. Variety’s Guy Lodge wrote that the film is “exquisitely crafted and emotionally intelligent, but it does tilt into dourness.”
Box office predictions ahead of opening weekend placed the domestic debut between eight and thirteen million dollars, with a total theatrical run forecast of nineteen to thirty-seven million dollars, modest expectations given the film was opening alongside the enormous gravitational pull of ‘Toy Story 5.’ A C+ CinemaScore suggests audiences who showed up were largely unmoved, making even those modest projections look optimistic in terms of word-of-mouth potential.
Sarnoski is best known for the critically acclaimed ‘Pig’ starring Nicolas Cage, and for directing ‘A Quiet Place: Day One,’ making him a filmmaker with strong industry credibility but an art-house sensibility that does not always translate to broad mainstream appeal. The combination of his deliberately paced style and Jackman’s gaunt, unrecognizable appearance in the film appears to have widened the gap between what critics embraced and what general audiences wanted.
The film also stars Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgård, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Jupe, a formidable ensemble that speaks to the ambitious artistic goals behind the project. For a studio like A24, which has seen both crossover smash hits and niche critical darlings, ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ may end up closer to the latter, a beautifully made but audience-resistant work that finds its true fans over time rather than at the multiplex.
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